Technology news

CERN, Europe's nuclear research organization, operates the Large Hadron Collider (or LHC, for short) — the largest particle accelerator in the world. Inside this almost 17-mile ring of tubes and superconducting magnets, beams of high-energy particles collide at nearly the speed of light. The LHC is also, apparently, a "hardon" collider, according to certain reaches of the internet — including CERN’s own site.That’s right, CERN has made the dreaded hardon typo. Writer Anne

Cool girl Kendall Jenner doesn't play by society's rules.
Just when you thought fashion couldn't get any more straightforward than the always-practical fanny pack, Jenner puts her own model-off-duty flare on the trend and shakes things up by wearing it not on her fanny, but over her shoulder and under her armpit. Kendall, sweetie, that's not how you wear it.Image:Broadimage/REX/ShutterstockSEE ALSO: Kendall Jenner with a fidget spinner is a walking metaphor for 2017
...Do you think she know

Apple Music is quietly undercutting Spotify.
The streaming service now offers subscribers the option to pay an annual fee of $99 rather than the $9.99 per month they'd otherwise owe, TechCrunch first reported. That's the equivalent of an $8.25 monthly fee, or $21 in yearly savings.
SEE ALSO: Apple's newest ad makes a haunting plea to take climate change seriously
The move could help Apple lock in a more loyal set of subscribers as it battles Spotify for dominance over the space. Spotify, which b

Of the hundreds of noble efforts to teach kids to code, Fuze is one of them. Fuze has created its own programming language, Fuze BASIC, a riff on the classic BASIC programming language that was the foundation of Microsoft as a company and a formative experience for anyone who typed a program into an Apple II or Commodore 64. And now Fuze BASIC is coming to the Switch.
The Fuze Code Studio, as seen on Nintendo Today, will let you write 2D and 3D games using Fuze BASIC, with access to the Joy-Con

Apple Music has a new subscription option for you to choose from, as first spotted by TechCrunch, but you’ll have to dig a bit to find it. The music streaming service added a $99 annual subscription plan — a few months ago, according to Apple — to go along with the monthly, family, and student plan options.The yearly option can be a nice $20 discount if you’re planning on keeping Apple Musicfor the next 12 months, but currently it’s not available if you’re try

Last year, Apple was ordered to refund ebook readers who purchased certain books between April 1st, 2010 and May 21st, 2012. The company paid out $400 million to impacted consumers who should have seen credits added to their various accounts, on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, and even Apple's own iTunes. If you received Amazon credit, you have until 11:59PM PT on June 24th to use it.You can check your credit here. You probably used up all or most of your credits, so long as you’re still

Researchers from the Facebook Artificial Intelligence Research lab (FAIR) recently made an unexpected discovery while trying to improve chatbots. The bots — known as “dialog agents” — were creating their own language. Using machine learning algorithms, dialog agents were left to converse freely in an attempt to strengthen their conversational skills. Over time, the bots began to deviate from the scripted norms and in doing so, started communicating in an entirely new lan

Silicon Valley is Mike Judge and Alec Berg’s biting comedy about the American tech industry, now in its fourth season. Every week, we’ll be taking one idea, scene, or joke and explain how it ties to the real Silicon Valley and speaks to an issue at the heart of the industry and its everlasting goal to change the world — and make boatloads of money in the process.
Spoilers ahead for the ninth episode of season 4, “Hooli-Con.”
More so than any of its sharp commentary

If you’re one of the people who doesn’t typically worry about images of you being shown online without your consent, congratulations. For the rest of us, who may have been in the vicinity of a camera and another person, we should point out there’s still no federal regulation preventing another person from distributing intimate images without your consent. Such images are colloquially known as “revenge porn” because of a perception that they are distributed by jilte

Drivers filed a federal class action lawsuit last week against so-called “driver-friendly” ride-hail apps Gett and Juno, alleging contractual breaches, intentional misrepresentations, false and deceptive advertising, and stock fraud.
When it first launched in New York City in April 2016, Juno positioned itself as the “anti-Uber,” promising better earnings and equity in the company to drivers. Drivers flocked to the app, instantly catapulting Juno to the top tiers of ride-

Overwatch’s deep roster of characters offers players a variety of ways to play, making it one of the more accessible entries in the first-person shooter genre. But it still requires some mix of speed and skill if you want to achieve excellence. But what would Overwatch look like if it didn’t make those demands of its fans? Think about it for a second: its colorful cast of characters roughly breaks down into offensive, defensive, tank, and support classes. And the unique abilities ran

NASA has found new evidence of 219 planets outside our Solar System. Ten of those exoplanets appear to be similar to the size of the Earth and orbit their stars in the habitable zone — just far enough away to develop water, but not so far that they freeze. If confirmed, they would be added to a small but growing list of Earth-sized planets that occupy our corner of the Milky Way galaxy, supporting the idea that rocky worlds are more common than we once thought.
The potential discoveries ar

It’s easy to pick out Koji “Iga” Igarashi in a crowd. Clad entirely in black, with a cowboy hat perched above a long ponytail, Igarashi looks the part of a renegade. Exactly what you’d expect from the man who brought Castlevania back to life with the seminal Symphony of the Night in 1997. He’s even been known — as was the case when I interviewed him at E3 last week — to carry around a whip, the favored weapon of Castlevania’s vampire-hunting Belmon

With traditional advertising methods slowly dying out, everyone who is somehow involved in the marketing industry is looking at new ways of approaching their audiences. All the surveys and statistics point towards the same things; the majority of marketers believe in influencer marketing and are looking to launch at least one such campaign in the future, if they have not done so already. With that in mind, let us take a look at 5 steps necessary to develop a successful influencer marketing plat

Toy and board game company Hasbro is entering the subscription box market with Hasbro Gaming Crate. The box is offered in two options: a family-friendly version and one geared more toward party games for adults. It includes three games, delivered every three months for the cost of $49.99.
Focusing on brand-new games instead of classics, the games are curated by Hasbro experts and include some crate-exclusive titles. (Hasbro’s website notes that these exclusives “may” become ava

In the future, climate change will make your allergies more miserable, likely flood the basement of your beach house, and possibly screw up your morning supply of irreplaceable caffeine — at least if you get your coffee from Ethiopia.
By the end of this century, increasing temperatures could make it impossible to grow coffee in about half of the country’s coffee-growing areas, according to a study published today in Nature Plants. That’s because Arabica coffee trees (which are

The e-book is no longer forcing print books out of existence – what does this mean? E-books are a symbol of the transition into the technological age, and when devices like the Kindle and Nook exploded onto the scene, it seemed books were going to disappear. For a while, it seemed certain that technology was going to oust physical text, but along the way, something changed. According to Nielsen, e-book sales fell 16% in 2016 compared to the year previously. In young adult fiction alone, e

There’s a startup popping up every minute. It can be a real uphill battle trying to get yours off the ground and into the public eye. ProductHunt, Facebook ads, shaking hands with other entrepreneurs at bars, all of these are ways that can help get your product noticed, but these are all things that are usually implemented once the product or service is in place. What if you’re just getting started? What if you have nothing more than a couple friends and an idea, then what? I spoke

For almost all of console gaming history, a game’s graphics were written in stone. Barring remakes and re-releases, Mario 64, Final Fantasy VII, Chrono Trigger, etc, look the same to everyone playing. Unlike PCs, where visual fidelity correlates strongly with your rig (and wallet), consoles democratized the gaming experience. The PS4 Pro and Xbox One X change all that. For the first time, console gamers have the option to play the same games with better graphics within the same generation

Volocopter, a German aviation startup formerly known as E-volo, just announced that it inked a deal with Dubai’s Road and Transport Authority to begin testing its 18-rotor multicopters as part of a flying taxi service later this year. The news further cements the city’s reputation as a testing ground for some of the transportation world’s more futuristic and outlandish ideas.A testing ground for some of the transportation world’s more futuristic and outlandish ideas
Voloc

David Cage was halfway through the script for Detroit: Become Human when tragedy struck Paris, France, the home of developer Quantic Dream. In November 2015, terrorists attacked the city in a series of suicide bombings and mass shootings, culminating with a raid on the Bataclan theater.In the weeks following the tragedy, Cage found himself as a creator — and specifically a creator of video games — at an unsettling crossroads. Blockbuster action games have long portrayed violence in a

CBS’s Star Trek: Discovery finally has release date. Deadline reports that the first two episodes of the long-delayed series will premiere on September 24th. With the announcement comes word that the network is splitting the season into two parts. The first eight episodes will run through November, while the remaining seven episodes will begin streaming in January 2018.Discovery has had a troubled production so far: it was originally scheduled to begin airing in January 2017, but productio

LG’s G6 is one of the best phones you can buy right now, but it faces stiff competition from Samsung’s S8. Now LG is trying to gain an edge over Samsung with a premium version of its flagship, the G6+. To be clear, the device isn’t any larger than the current G6; the ‘plus’ designation only indicates a couple of new features: The G6+ doubles the storage to 128 GB and adds a premium 32-bit HiFi Quad DAC, as found in the excellent V20. The latter feature was pre

Samsung is offering a new deal for the Galaxy S8 that’s pretty appealing if you’re a T-Mobile customer: buy one S8 from Samsung’s website, get a second one free after a instant rebate.
Samsung’s deal is refreshingly simple and free of fine print
There have been a few deals for the Galaxy S8 offering a second free phone from carriers (including T-Mobile), but Samsung’s deal is refreshingly simple and free of fine print. Unlike other deals, where you had to activate a

It feels like ages ago now, but do you remember Facebook’s most recent F8 event? One thing that captured my attention was M Suggestions. This was Facebook’s effort to make messenger more useful by anticipating the user’s desires. So, if you were to message a friend about going for a pizza, it’ll bring up the Seamless app. It’s super clever stuff. At the time, I couldn’t help but feel sad that the technology was limited to the walled garden of Facebook Messeng

Microsoft is now allowing Surface Laptop owners to switch back to Windows 10 S after they’ve upgraded to Windows 10 Pro. While the upgrade path from Windows 10 S to Windows 10 Pro on the Surface Laptop is quick and easy, going back to Windows 10 S isn’t straightforward. Microsoft is offering special software restore images for Surface Laptop devices, and you’ll need to wipe the entire machine to get back to Windows 10 S.
This is surprisingly complicated given the switch to Wind

In a unanimous decision, the Supreme Court ruled today that a North Carolina law prohibiting sex offenders from using social media was unconstitutional.
The state has prosecuted more than 1,000 people under the law
“A fundamental principle of the First Amendment is that all persons have access to places where they can speak and listen, and then, after reflection, speak and listen once more,” Justice Kennedy writes in the court’s decision, adding that digital spaces — incl

Interested in picking up HTC’s latest premium smartphone, the squeezable U11, but don’t like the current US color choices of blue, silver, or black? Then I’ve got some good news on that front: HTC is releasing the incredibly nice looking “Solar Red” version of the U11 in the United States, with pre-orders set to start through HTC’s website at 12:01am EST tonight.HTC has spent the last few days counting down on Twitter toward a release of the internationally of

Interested in picking up HTC’s latest premium smartphone, the squeezable U11, but don’t like the current US color choices of blue, silver, or black? Then I’ve got some good news on that front. HTC has spent the last few days counting down on Twitter toward a release of the internationally offered red-colored version of its newest smartphone here in the States, originally spotted by SlashGear.We've heard you loud and clear — Stay tuned... #HTCU11 pic.twitter.com/jSqDQmdLHy

Sure, the internet is for cats, but who do we have to thank for bringing us these companions?One answer comes from a paper published today in the journal Nature Ecology & Evolution. Researchers analyzed DNA extracted from the teeth and bones of over 200 cats. These remains span 9,000 years, and trace back to places from Viking graves to modern Angola. They found that cats spread in two waves — one from the Near East, and one from Egypt — traveling on ships to arrive in new places

Some of Mexico’s most prominent journalists and activists were targeted by a massive spyware campaign, according to a new report from Citizen Lab. Conducted mostly between August 2015 and July 2016, the campaign included 76 separate spyware-laced SMS messages sent to 11 different targets, including prominent TV journalist Carmen Aristegui and her young son. It’s unclear why Aristegui and the others were targeted, although she and many of the other targeted journalists were investigat

Asus brought its new ZenBook 3 Deluxe to both CES and Computex this year, and now it’s available to buy. The laptop costs $1,699 on Asus’ eShop, Newegg, Amazon, and B&H. It appears Asus wants to directly compete with Apple’s new MacBook Pro or the Surface Laptop by featuring a 14-inch LED 1920 x 1080 display, two Thunderbolt 3 USB-C ports, one USB 3.1 USB-C port, 16GB of memory, 512GB of storage, and an Intel seventh-generation Core i7 processor. The Zenbook 3 Deluxe runs W

Google Play Music became the default music player on the Galaxy S8 when it launched back in April. Now the service has launched a device-exclusive feature for the flagship Android smartphone.
According to Android Authority, Google has launched New Release Radio — a feature similar to Spotify’s Release Radar — for the Galaxy S8 and S8 Plus. New Release Radio will show you a personalized mix of new music updated on a daily basis.Photo: Android AuthorityNew Release Radio is a nice

Ring continues to make minor improvements to its popular line of smart video doorbells. Last year was the Video Doorbell Pro, which added 1080p video and configurable motion-detection zones, but didn't run on battery power. The new Video Doorbell 2 has 1080p and motion zones, but returns to Ring's easy-to-install roots with a rechargeable battery.
In fact, you can finally swap out the doorbell's battery, so if you have two batteries in rotation, you can keep your doorbell online 24/7 without bot

A conservative analytics firm apparently scraped a huge trove of Reddit data as part of its voter-targeting efforts. As reported by Gizmodo, GOP-contracted company Deep Root Analytics accidentally put a folder titled “reddit” on a publicly accessible web server along with other internal records, which cyber risk analyst Chris Vickery discovered last week. It contains 170GB of data from several subreddits, but no indication of how Deep Root might be using the information.
The subreddi

Nearly a year after it first launched, Pokémon Go is getting a big summer update aimed at making the game both more accessible and more social. While it may not be as popular as the heady days when it first debuted, developer Niantic says that Pokémon Go has been downloaded more than 750 million times to date, and it currently boasts 65 million monthly players. To keep that fanbase engaged, the studio is adding two major new features to the game, which you’ll be able to exper

One of the biggest limitations of current virtual reality technology — whether you’re talking about Samsung’s mobile Gear VR or a full home system like the Oculus Rift — is resolution. And progress toward solving this problem is slow, because companies making VR headsets are at the mercy of advances in display technology.A new company led by former Nokia and Microsoft product managers aims to slash that wait by using a clever crossing of existing hardware and carefully ex