Technology news

Twitter on Tuesday night permanently banned conservative pundit and Breitbart Tech editor Milo Yiannopoulos from its platform. 
Yiannopoulos was banned for his role in the online harassment of Ghostbusters actress Leslie Jones. After writing a scathing review of the film, Yiannopoulos and Jones exchanged words on Twitter. 
Jones was sent a deluge of harassing messages, many of them racist. Jones left Twitter on Monday night. I don’t blame her. As she said herself, all of this ov

Excuse me, but why hasn't Phillip's pool been filled?
Phillip specifically needs water
In order to swim.
Phillip knows that some pools have water.
In fact,
Phillip is pretty sure that most pools have water.
Phillip doesn't ask
For much.
Just food and smiles.
And grass.
And a friend who is a poodle.
And a pool that is a pool.
That's what he
Needs.
Along with treats.
And hugs.
And for you to drop half of your hot dog
By accident.
Phillip is putting on a brave face.
Phillip is trying to make t

Short-term rental company Airbnb has hired former U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder in an effort to address allegations of racial bias on the platform.  
Holder will work with noted civil rights attorney John Relman to help the company put in place an official anti-discrimination policy. 
In a blog post, Airbnb CEO Brian Chesky addressed the controversy and Holder's new position.
"This is the greatest challenge we face as a company," Chesky wrote. "We will not simply ‘address th

The crew behind Game Of Thrones has run out of books to adapt and is rapidly running out of story to tell, which means there’s a new kind of power gap coming. Instead of contenders in Westeros fighting for the Iron Throne, we’re about to see contenders on cable fighting to fill the attention gap Game Of Thrones leaves behind after its final season. Walking Dead creator Robert Kirkman has a possible solution: Roger Zelazny’s Chronicles Of Amber, a classic 10-book fantasy series

As promised earlier this year, Google has officially removed the weird app launcher that it bundled with the Chrome browser for Windows and Mac with the launch of Chrome 52, reports VentureBeat. The launcher, which is still going to live in Chrome OS, allowed you to launch Chrome apps without having to have the browser open. But more often than not, it was duplicative of the app launchers that are natively in Windows and macOS. Chrome apps will now live in those launchers and will reta

Flying down a waterslide is awesome. Flying off a cliff is not.
David Salmon posted a slow motion clip to his Facebook page on Monday in which he got a little too much speed going down a waterslide in Texas and flew right over the slide's edge, down a cliff. 
SEE ALSO: Two men fall off a cliff playing 'Pokémon Go'Salmon, who posted the clip from his hospital bed says he suffered a broken arm, fractured ribs and multiple lacerations on his side, back and arms in the fall. 
Accor

Plantronics is working to capture a bigger piece of the gaming-headset market, and it’s launching a new wireless audio device with insane battery life to compete.
After announcing the PlayStation VR-compatible Rig 4VR, Plantronics also revealed the new Rig 800 headset that comes in models for PlayStation 4 and Xbox One. The 800 is a wireless over-the-ear headphone unit with 24 hours of battery life. That puts it well ahead of competition from Razer and Astro, which have devices that l

Your next smartphone could be a little less likely to break when you drop it.
Corning, makers of the Gorilla Glass used in many smartphone displays, introduced the next generation of the material Wednesday at an event at its Palo Alto, California, facility. Gorilla Glass 5, the company says, is more likely to survive drops from higher heights than previous generations.
SEE ALSO: Apple might announce 3 different iPhone 7 models this year
To make Gorilla Glass 5 more drop resistant, the company t

Pokémon trainers have always had to deal with hardships like tough gym leaders, that meddling Team Rocket, and finding rare legendary creatures. But now you can add a new obstacle to the list: overloaded servers.
Pokémon Go is experiencing another major round of outages around the world as it moves into its third week of release. Intermittent troubles have plagued the game since its debut earlier this month. Many players are getting a screen that confirms the location-bas

Google today launched Chrome 52 for Windows, Mac, and Linux. This release is mainly focused on developers, but users should benefit from some of the improvements right away. You can update to the latest version now using the browser’s built-in silent updater, or download it directly from google.com/chrome.
Chrome is arguably more than a browser: With over 1 billion users, it’s a major platform that web developers have to consider. In fact, with its regular additions and changes, deve

GUEST: With the countless bots that have appeared lately, finding ones to use is becoming increasingly difficult. When you type “bot” into the Google search box, you receive literally hundreds of thousands of results. Going through all of them would take all the time in the world. Wouldn’t it be much easier to find all of them in one place and choose what you need in a matter of seconds?
Fortunately, this brilliant idea has crossed more than&n

New York is planning to upgrade its subway cars to include free Wi-Fi and USB ports for charging. I won’t tell you how to feel about that decision. We knew about the plans months ago, and now we have a better idea of what the new cars might look like. The city released renderings this week, including this one:State of New YorkSee those USB ports? I’m not sure how many will be included in each car, but I know it’s not enough to quench New Yorkers’ thirst for a charge, espe

Okay, okay: You can be CEO. But what about everyone else?
As crazy as it may sound, the way you distribute power within your business is one of the most crucial components of success. From choosing the right co-founder to crafting a succession plan, ironing out your power hierarchy will help you create a foundation for growing your business.
Check out the videos below to learn how other entrepreneurs approach business structuring, and get inspired for your own org chart.
What to look for in a c

Last night, Twitter banned one of its most infamous users: the Breitbart editor and conservative pundit Milo Yiannopoulos. In a statement sent to Recode, Twitter said that while "people should be able to express diverse opinions and beliefs on Twitter ... our rules prohibit inciting or engaging in the targeted abuse or harassment of others." A screenshot posted to Breitbart said much the same thing, adding that the account was being banned permanently because he had been given similar warni

I was never a big fan of the original Dots. While I’m all for minimalist games, the mobile puzzler always felt too insubstantial to really hold my attention for long. But there was definitely something satisfying about the main mechanic, which had you matching lines of like-colored dots to clear them away. The sequel, Two Dots, made good on that premise by introducing some semblance of structure through increasingly challenging levels. The third game in the series, which releases toda

The celebration of the Apollo 11 mission anniversary is always a story told with iconic images. Some of the pictures captured of Neil Armstrong, Michael Collins and Buzz Aldrin could be considered among the most important ever takenJust mentioning the mission immediately evokes the images of Aldrin in his space suit, Armstrong after his moonwalk, the crescent Earth and Aldrin saluting the American flag.Which makes paying tribute to the mission's amazing landing -- which took place on July 2

The tech world moves fast. Really fast. Yesterday's hot new hype is today's utter obnoxiousness.
There are no tech etiquette rules written in stone, but if you are any bit of a sane human being, you'll pick up on them. 
SEE ALSO: U.S. government leads recall of 500,000 hoverboards
Below are six things you should never do if you want to avoid becoming the neighborhood #techdouchebag.
1. You never get off your hoverboardHoverboards are overMashable chief correspondent Lance Ulanoff refuses t

Remember Google Glass? Of course you do. And remember how, despite all its other problems, the only thing that really bugged people about Google Glass was its omnipresent camera, which could be triggered with a wink?
Well so now there's a standalone product that does just that. It's called Blincam, it's from Japan, and it's still not even at the Kickstarter stage yet. But watch this highly emotional video and just try and deny this man hands-free blink snaps of his daughter.The glasses-mounted c

One Republican party member is not staying silent on their anti-LGBT platform.
Last week, Anne Dickerson, a delegate from New York, took a moment to call out discrimination against same-sex marriage and adoption during a platform committee meeting before the Republican National Convention.
SEE ALSO: Protesters bring their own wall to the Republican convention
The committee meetings were called to discuss core values of the Republican Party. During an amendment discussion, Dickerson called out pl

Mitch Lasky has scored a lot of big investments as a general partner at Benchmark: He was an early investor in Snapchat, NaturalMotion, Gaikai, and Riot Games. But he is wary about investing in virtual reality game companies, Lasky said during a fireside chat at the Casual Connect USA game conference in San Francisco.
“A lot of venture capitalists jumped into VR. It is a dramatically overfunded space. The consensus is VR is the next big platform. Facebook says it is the new mobile pho

eBay reported its Q2 2016 earnings today, bringing in $2.2 billion in revenue and a non-GAAP earnings per share of $0.43. In addition to its financials, the online commerce company revealed that its board has approved a plan to repurchase an additional $2.5 billion in stock and has for the first time crossed 1 billion live listings on its site.
By comparison, Wall Street analysts had expected the company to generate $2.17 billion in revenue and an EPS of $0.42, so eBay beat expectations all

On Tuesday, two government science agencies announced that the first six months of 2016 were the warmest first half of any year on record. 
The data confirms what climate scientists have been startled to see during the past several years — the Earth's climate has made a step jump into a new, hotter era with more intense and frequent extreme events. 
SEE ALSO: June marks Earth's 14th-straight record warm month, catapults globe into new climate regime
One way to look at the recent

Tara Lipinski is making figure skating fans' dreams come true.
The 1998 Olympic gold medalist is teaming up with Hulu for a new behind-the-scenes drama about the intense world of figure skating.
Producer Michael Shamberg and writer Jonathan Igla (Mad Men) are also on board.
SEE ALSO: Binge-watch Hulu in virtual reality thanks to new Oculus Rift support
The untitled series will focus about what it takes to be an Olympic champion.
Following her career in figure skating, Lipinski has increased her

Earlier on Wednesday, the Trump campaign finally offered up its sacrificial lamb for Monday's Melania Trump plagiarism snafu: Meredith McIver. 
SEE ALSO: RNC official defends Melania Trump by quoting 'My Little Pony'
McIver, who apparently helped Trump write some of his books, released a statement accepting responsibility and taking the fall for the incident. The only problem: people are speculating she's not real at all. 
Is she a real person? Probably. But Trump has made up people b

Intel reported second-quarter earnings that beat analyst estimates, driven by revenues from data center chips, programmable solutions, and the Internet of Things. But the company warned it is cautious about the core PC market.
In the previous quarter, Intel said it would lay off 12,000 employees. That was a clear sign that Intel intended to do something dramatic to deal with its weakness in mobile chips and the steady decline of the personal computer. Intel is a bellwether for the PC market

Jimmy Fallon may have done his best Trump impersonation yet, this time imitating Donald Trump's entrance at the Reoublican National Convention Tuesday — Queen song and all. 
The Tonight Show segment also featured Fallon-Trump referencing other huge moments of the convention, including Michelle Obama's Melania Trump's speech.  Read more...
More about Mashable Video, Donald Trump, Tonight Show, Election 2016, and Jimmy Fallon

We know what happens when you put on 100 layers of foundation. Now let's get Kylie Jenner involved.
Blogger Superb Stella valiantly sacrificed her new-ish tube of Kylie's Candy K lip kit to slather on 100 layers of the stuff. As one would expect, the result is pretty crusty.
"You know when you put on a face mask and it starts to dry and you can't really feel your face?" Stella says midway through the challenge. "That's exactly how my lips feel right now."
Kylie, thoughts?
Russian beachgoers use

Over the past few months, live-streaming video on social media has hit a critical mass. The stories have ranged from the absurd to the tragic, the local to the global. Just last week the tools shed light on a police-involved shooting and the attempted military coup in Turkey. Facebook Live and Periscope have given viewers an on-the-ground view of what’s happening in the world where television cameras haven’t been in the past.
But streaming video isn’t just for civilians —

Last month, private spaceflight company Blue Origin intentionally crash-landed part of its New Shepard rocket. The idea was to see if the vehicle could keep people safe in the event of a failure. The answer appears to be yes. CEO Jeff Bezos said in an email today that the company received good results from that crash landing, indicating that any hypothetical passengers onboard would have done just fine. Continue reading…

GUEST: By now you’ve certainly heard of Pokémon Go, and you’ve seen the crowds of people walking around, noses in their phones, excitedly chasing Pikachus and Charmanders across the countryside. Did you know that businesses are profiting from it?
Sure, the Pokémon Company itself — a subsidiary of Nintendo — is making money hand over fist from their AR game, but they aren’t the only ones getting in on the action. To understand how, you need to understan

You no longer have to write a novel or film to join one of the longest-running collective of creative writers, because video games count now, too.
The nonprofit Science Fiction & Fantasy Writers of America organization revealed today that it will start accepting people who write the narratives and characters for video, role-playing, and table-top games beginning August 1. The SFWA membership voted to make this change, and anyone who meets a few requirements can submit an application to join.

Facebook has begun rolling out several updates to its livestreaming capability this week. People and Page administrators will now be able to broadcast longer with Facebook Live — up to 4 hours per session, along with being able to do so in fullscreen and video-only mode. These options are intended to benefit both the creator and the viewer and are set to be released more broadly “in the coming weeks.”
Above: Facebook Live now supports fullscreen video broadcasts.Image

Glassmaker Corning just unveiled its newest version of Gorilla Glass, the chemically strengthened super glass that dozens of consumer electronics makers use in their devices.
Called Gorilla Glass 5, the new glass was formulated to improve drop performance from gadgets that are dropped onto rough surfaces from certain heights — specifically, waist height to shoulder height. Selfie-fumblers rejoice: Corning says Gorilla Glass 5 (at 0.6mm thick) survives up to 80 percent of the time when drop

Swiftkey announced a new keyboard app today, its first major app since it was acquired by Microsoft in February. It is a keyboard app dubbed Swiftmoji, and despite what the name suggests, it is not a Taylor Swift-themed sticker pack.
The new app simplifies the painstaking process of finding the perfect emoji for every message. After a user types a word, phrase, or sentence, Swiftmoji suggests a variety of emoji related to whatever was typed. For instance, typing "pizza" yields a pizza, an Italia

(Reuters) — Apple Inc stands to rake in $3 billion in revenue from the Pokemon Go craze in the next one to two years as gamers buy “PokeCoins” from its app store, brokerage Needham & Co said.
Pokemon Go, the augmented reality game from Japan’s Nintendo Co Ltd, can be downloaded for free but iPhone users can use PokeCoins to buy additional features.
A pack of 100 PokeCoins costs 99 cents in Apple’s app store, but the price can go up as much as $99.99 for a pack o

Carpooling fever is sweeping the nation — or at least the nation’s taxi services. Both Uber and Lyft are aggressively pushing carpooling on reluctant riders, who like the cheaper fares but are less bullish about sharing their trips with complete strangers. And now New York City’s iconic yellow taxis are jumping into the carpooling game, with the help from two app startups and one the country’s biggest taxi technology companies.The taxi-sharing feature will be available on