Technology news

Apple’s annual environmental report gives us a tidy insight on how much raw material it gets when recycling our old phones and tablets. As it turns out, we’re almost worth our weight in gold (and steel… and glass). If you’re curious, Apple pulled about 2,204 pounds of gold from recycled iStuff (and Macs!) last year. That’s a solid ton of gold, worth about $40 million. Apple also yanked about 61 million pounds of steel, glass, aluminum and other miscellaneous mater

Google is getting into the restaurant business – but only for four days. The company has opened up Small World, a ‘interactive’ pop-up eatery in New York City’s Lower East Side, in something of a promotion for Google Translate. At first glance, it seems customers will be able to translate menu items using Google Translate on their phones. The restaurant will feature four chefs from today to Monday, April 18, all of whom practice different cuisine specialties. April

In the latest Android N Developer Preview, there’s code that alludes to a 3D Touch-like feature coming for Android. A developer has spoofed the functionality, giving us a preview of what Google may be thinking. Because there’s no existing Android device with physical 3D Touch capabilities, the developer had to mimic the functionality using long presses and swiping down on the icon. In Google’s documentation, 3D Touch is only useful for the app icon itself; or ‘launcher s

Apps and extensions for Chrome are a lot of fun, but they can also be mysterious little black holes in your browser that grab personal information. Now, Google is bringing its Chrome Web Store rules more in line with the Play Store, at least where privacy is concerned. In a blog post, Google is now making those who create Web apps or extensions adhere to three new principles: Be transparent about the handling of user data and disclose privacy practices. Post a privacy policy and use encryption,

In February, the FCC voted in favor of loosening cable’s grip on set-top boxes. Today, President Obama offered a show of support to the initiative that sought to give consumers greater control of how they access their favorite channels. The “Unlock the Box” initiative sought to encourage competition and promote innovation by giving consumers choice in what box they’d like to use to access cable television. Currently, cable companies are pocketing an average of