Technology news

Speaking today in Ohio, Donald Trump moved from questioning the integrity of primary elections to questioning the integrity of the upcoming general election, which is not the most shocking thing he's done, but perhaps one of the most dangerous. "I'm afraid the election is going to be rigged," Trump said. Forget conspiracy theories about rigged voting machines and stolen elections — what Trump just said is the real danger.
Trump has alarmed people of all political stripes for his ignorant a

Apple has a complicated relationship with the 2-in-1 computing device. The company has shied away from describing its iPad lineup — even the wondrously expensive iPad Pro with its keyboard and stylus — as a convertible machine in the same language as competitors Microsoft and Lenovo market Surface and Yoga Tab products. Still, Apple wants customers to think of its tablets as more capable than extra-large smartphones. Now, a new iPad Pro ad out today makes the argument as tr

Stranger Things is the best new show on Netflix so far this year. There are and will always be disappointed critics, but I am glad to have another show that actually likes both its characters and the human race. This is why I loved Parks and Recreation. This is why I adored the second season of Last Man on Earth, which traded a cruel rigidity for a sincere and looser exploration of how people might come together in the apocalypse. When it feels like the real world is actually falling apart, I ap

A new diagnostic tool could make detecting Zika infection in patients much easier and cheaper in remote areas of Latin and Central America. The new technology was developed by several universities, including MIT, Harvard, University of Toronto, and Cornell University, and it will be presented tomorrow at the 68th AACC Annual Scientific Meeting & Clinical Lab Expo in Philadelphia.
Though several diagnostics tools already exist to detect the virus, the new tool does stand out for how portable

After more than a year of speculation and anguish from fans, Frank Ocean's third album Boys Don't Cry will soon be available for your listening pleasure. The LP is finally dropping this Friday, August 5th, as an Apple Music exclusive, The Verge has confirmed. Boys Don't Cry will be accompanied by a print magazine of the same name, which will be available at Apple stores, according to The New York Times.
The follow-up to 2012's acclaimed R&B opus Channel Orange was announced through a Tu

Sometimes I see something so ugly I’m emotionally stirred. It’s usually a design that’s meant to be cool, but is actually very uncool and brutally out-of-touch that I want it. Sad dysmorphic Jesus, for example, has been a favorite of mine.So wrong, yet so great. Nikon’s Coolpix W100 is another flawed design concept that turned out okay.NikonThe sea animal print. The light color palette. The blue ring around the lens. I’m confident everyone would envy me if I took th

Redirected walking is a simple but trippy idea: what if a virtual reality game could trick you into walking in circles, while feeling like you were moving straight ahead? It’s the big trick behind ambitious "hyper-reality" project The Void, and something that university labs were working on for years before that. But it can be tough to explain in a way that feels clear and informative instead of hand-wavey. That’s one reason I like this video about building the "unlimited corridor,"

Apple has released the Apple TV’s companion iPhone remote app. It’s a full-fledged (albeit less convenient) replacement for the remote that came with every black Apple TV, or generations two, three, and four.
The app lets users control their Apple TV with touch gestures; use the iPhone’s keyboard to enter email addresses, passwords, or other text; play, pause, fast forward, or rewind currently playing videos or songs; and, for owners of the latest-generation Apple TV, ask Siri

 Of all the ways to make a 3-dimensional object, 3D printing is still the freshest, whether what’s involved is plastic extrusion, milling away wood or metal, or the spinning of cells into functional living tissues. Now, a company that makes a desktop laser cutter and engraver for home or office use, Glowforge, has raised $22 million to start mass production of its devices. The startup… Read More

Android users will now get a notification if a new device is added to their Google account, replacing the email that was reactively archived before reading. Google says the new notification system makes users four times as likely to review their accounts compared to the email, which means a breached account could be rapidly identified and save you a bunch of time on the phone with your bank trying to defeat an automated system to get to a human.A quick tap on the alert will let you view the type

I was one of those kids who didn’t have cable. For this reason, my moral compass and world view were shaped by maybe seven channels of public TV. This included the morning news; the sitcom Frasier; and most-influentially PBS's Arthur, a children's program that, no matter the time of day, would be discovered airing halfway through an episode. The show's pervasiveness no doubt left an impression on kids of the '90s who, like me, got their diet of wholesome life lessons and appreciation of fa

The downside of today’s relentless review economy — the rush to cover every film and television show first and fastest — is that we’re constantly analyzing stories long before we know where they’re headed. Critics dismiss entire TV series based on the pilot. Fans turn the first issue of a comic series into a national crisis. And as our entertainment becomes more and more serialized, and we focus more and more on breaking it down into bite-sized chunks, we often miss

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has issued a travel warning for Wynwood, a neighborhood in Miami where 14 people have been infected with mosquito-borne transmissions of the Zika virus. At the request of Florida Governor Rick Scott, the CDC is sending an Emergency Response Team to Miami to assist in the investigation and response effort.
"I have requested that the CDC activate their Emergency Response Team to assist DOH in their investigation, research and sample collection efforts

Virgin Galactic now has a commercial operating license for its SpaceShipTwo vehicle. That’s the company’s spaceplane that’s designed to take passengers into sub-orbital space. The license, granted by the Federal Aviation Administration, allows Virgin Galactic to begin conducting test flights of the vehicle to see if it’s capable of carrying paying customers safely above Earth. However, the company has yet to announce when those first test flights will take place. Con

Lyft, the number two ride-sharing app in the US, says it will reevaluate its partnership with Didi Chuxing, the dominant service in China. This comes after the latter announced Monday it was acquiring Uber’s China operation.Lyft and Didi have been partners since last December, when the two companies formed what was widely viewed as an anti-Uber alliance, along with Ola and Grab, the largest ride-sharing apps in India and Southeast Asia, respectively. The team-up was meant to stem Uber&rsqu

50 Cent's next show on Starz will be his first foray into superhero TV. The Hollywood Reporter reports that, with the third season of his crime drama Power having just begun, 50 has extended his overall deal with the network, under which he'll develop Tomorrow, Today, a series about a superpowered vigilante on the streets of Chicago.
"I am looking forward to continuing my relationship with my Starz family, we have had great success together on "Power" and I am excited to get going on all of

Comcast is being sued for more than $100 million by Washington state, which claims that the cable giant illegally deceived customers with various customer service guarantees. Most notably, the state alleges that Comcast deceived Washington customers into paying $73 million over five years for a "near-worthless 'protection plan'" that failed to disclose many areas it didn't cover. One particular area that state Attorney General Bob Ferguson focused on was the plan's lack of coverage for in-wall w

Apple today announced new iOS emoji that show women playing more sports and performing jobs that, prior to today, only allowed for male options. The icons will be available on devices running the new iOS 10 staring this fall, the company announced in a note on its website. As it stands today, Apple's sports-related emoji and a majority of its occupational emoji show only men performing activities, which doesn't jibe at all with reality. Now, there are female options for weight lifting,

360fly’s 4K camera, which it introduced at CES this past year, is now available for $499.99. It comes with 64GB of internal memory, telemetry sensors, and an e-compass. The camera pairs with a user’s smartphone so it’s controlled through an app. The most notable thing, though, is the fact that the camera is slightly rugged; it’s shockproof, dustproof, and water resistant.
The 360fly is one of the better options available and fits in alongside the Ricoh Theta S.

Google is sending more and more of its traffic over HTTPS, according to a new announcement by the company. The announcement adds specific numbers on encrypted traffic for Google Calendar and YouTube, with the video service sending more than 97 percent of its traffic over encrypted connections.
Google began reporting on HTTPS usage in March, reporting roughly 75 percent encrypted traffic across all services, although neither Calendar or YouTube were included in that report. Google also recen

Uber used to have a big problem in China: it was hemorrhaging money — some reports put it at $1 billion a year — in its fierce battle with Didi Chuxing over the fastest growing ride-hail market in the world. This was good news for Lyft, Uber’s biggest competitor in the US, because the more Uber was focused on China, the less it could afford to worry about things here at home. But now Uber has solved its problem in China by allowing its operations there to be merged with Didi. A

Far too often, I come across windy rants paired with irrelevant clips, iMovie title sequences, and celebrity commentary lifted from a DVD or TV interview. There’s some notable exceptions, chief among which is KaptainKristian.
KaptainKristian is Kristian Williams, a former film student who dropped out of film school when he "realized everything they were teaching was available online." He took to video blogging after being frustrated by Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice earlier this s

At the direction of Governor Andrew Cuomo, New York’s correctional department has made playing online games a violation of parole for sex offenders — particularly Pokémon Go. In a statement, Cuomo said that people on the sex offender registry are now banned from "downloading, accessing, or otherwise engaging in any internet enabled gaming activities, including Pokémon Go." He also published a letter that he sent to game developer Niantic, asking for its cooperation

The latest Pokémon Go update may have shut out existing third-party maps from displaying the locations of nearby pokémon, but a new app bypassing these restrictions has already hit the Google Play Store.
While it's still in beta, Smart Poké 2 worked in our tests on Android phones and Android Wear watches, displaying the locations of any recently spawned pokémon on a map of the user's surrounding area. If you tap on a specific pokémon, a card pops up w

The Girlfriend Experience, Starz's ambitious but empty drama about the life of a high-end escort, has been renewed for a second season, according to The Hollywood Reporter. The series is loosely inspired by Steven Soderbergh's 2009 movie of the same name — he's credited as an executive producer for the show's first season and will stay on for its second.
The show stars Riley Keough as Christine Reade, a law student who begins working as an escort to make extra money, and also because she's

Last week Xiaomi released its MacBook Air competitor, and now Lenovo has announced a competitor to the competitor. The Lenovo Air 13 Pro (such a creative name) is a Windows 10 laptop that nearly matches Xiaomi's Mi Notebook Air spec for spec, down to the $750 price tag:
13.3-inch Full HD display
Intel Core i5 or i7 Skylake processor
Up to 512GB SSD
Up to 8GB of RAM
2GB Nvidia GeForce GTX940MX GPU.Fingerprint sensorThe China-only laptop will be available in two different versions: one with 4

For the past six years, NASA has been intensely focused on sending people to Mars — but the rocket and spacecraft that the agency is building for the job face delays and budget problems. That’s according to two new independent reviews done by the Government Accountability Office (GAO), a federal agency that conducts audits on behalf of Congress. Released last week, the reports paint a grim picture for NASA’s Orion crew capsule and the Space Launch System (SLS) —

Last week's announcement that Amazon's Alexa can now control a Wi-Fi door lock — provided that you're already in close proximity to both devices, which means it's arguably easier to lock the door yourself — had me SMH. Incrementalism is not always a bad thing, but here was another example of asking consumers to spend hundreds of dollars for an incrementally better "smart home" experience. For these kinds of costs, Alexa better make my coffee for me, too.
Which is what I dec