Technology news

To be stood up by Kanye West is an honor and a privilege, as James Corden acknowledges.
The Late Late Show host told British GQ that West has canceled tapings of his wildly popular segment, Carpool Karaoke, twice. Michelle Obama, however, managed to fit it into her schedule.
SEE ALSO: Ikea offers a minimalist solution to Kanye's furniture designing dreams
"Kanye has been booked to do Carpool Karaoke now twice and both times something came up,"  Corden told the magazine. Yeezy has plenty of

Mailmen and dogs are often considered sworn enemies — but this unlikely duo is tearing those boundaries down.
Michael Collins of Tauranga, New Zealand, recently posted footage to Facebook of his 9-month-old pup's daily rendezvous with the mailman. Spoiler: It includes a lot of smiling and petting, and it's clear the two are great friends.
SEE ALSO: Dogs locked in a car drove it straight into WalmartFor Collins, the friendship is particularly poignant because his big dog doesn't always get

Watch out: The "Netflix tax" is coming. 
At least in Pennsylvania. The state legislature there recently extended its 6 percent sales tax to digital downloads and subscription services like Netflix and Hulu.
Though it's called the Netflix tax, colloquially at least, the fee will also apply to streaming and downloads for music, e-books and apps. Digital versions of newspapers, magazines and the Bible, will be exempt. 
Pennsylvania joins a select group of locations that have begun to put

File rosé to that section of your brain used for avocado toast and crazy milkshakes. That category called, "food and drink that, though delicious, has become unbearable because it's just everywhere."SEE ALSO: Japan ups its Kit Kat game with liquid nitrogen
Rosé gets its trademark hue from crushed grape skins, though it does not contain enough to be considered red wine. It ranges in color from pale pink to vibrant fuchsia and in taste from dry to sweet. It's also extremely photogeni

Parents who muster the willpower to leave their house with an infant know that whatever happens next is wholly unpredictable. That baby might torpedo his or her parent's well-laid plans with multiple diaper blowouts, inexplicable fussing, an insatiable appetite or piercing howls. 
So when a parent chooses to attend, of all events, a political rally, trust that supporting their candidate means a lot to that particular mom or dad. In return, politicians generally fawn over babies. If nothing

The Rio Olympics are kicking off on August 5th, but Rio de Janeiro’s waterways show alarming levels of pollution that could be dangerous for athletes and tourists alike. The Olympics and Paralympic aquatic venues are teeming with dangerous viruses and bacteria from untreated sewage, according to a 16-month-long study commissioned by The Associated Press.
The findings prompted biomedical expert Valerie Harwood to give this advice to visitors, according to the AP: "Don't put your head under

That feeling when your Apple software-powered car starts spitting hot emoji poetry at you and you realize, yes, this is the future. 
SEE ALSO: Dozens of new emoji will finally show women being awesome
That's the first reaction we had while watching this amazing demonstration one Apple CarPlay user posted that has Siri reading off every Apple emoji from the car's dashboard. 
"Anger."
"Man in business suit levitating."
"Highway receding into the distance." 
"Sunrise pictorial card.

The original subscription service needs a lifeline. 
Birchbox, the once-buzzy beauty startup, raised $15 million in additional funding from current investors in an effort to stave off a cash flow problem, Recode reported. 
The money is needed to shore up the company after two rounds of layoffs this year and a $60 million investment in 2014 that pressured the startup to operate at a higher level than it was quite prepared for.
The company, founded in 2010, was the first to master the su

BEVERLY HILLS, California — Could a streaming service be on the way for network giant NBCUniversal?
At the network's Television Critics Association presentation on Tuesday, NBC Chief Bob Greenblatt hinted that an OTT platform is certainly inevitable — but not anytime soon.
"Whatever we do in that space, we want to make sure it's not an affront to the cable space," he told reporters. "We're trying to craft something that is a good thing for them as well. We're just not there yet."
SEE

Prototypes of real-life eyedropper tools already exist (like the Spector, which can identify fonts and colors), and the Cronzy pen is no different when it comes to detecting colors. But what makes Cronzy special is that it contains ink cartridges that let you actually draw these colors you've scanned. Cronzy claims that it can scan and draw 16 million colors, collecting "all the existing colors and shades of the world!" The only way we can put these bold claims to the test is if we count ou

Remember that time CNN made Wolf Blitzer talk to a hologram of Jessica Yellin which made America ask the question, why would we ever need holograms? No? Blocked it out? Well lucky for you, a company called HoloVit wants to reinvigorate that nightmare give you the ability to watch and create holograms in your home.The HoloVit is a hologram kit that supposedly lets you watch holograms using your smartphone, tablet, or laptop with an additional screen, although it is very light on technical de

I grew up at the foot of a dormant volcano in the Cascades, and like many of my classmates, I climbed it a few times as a teenager. Mountains — real, tree-bare, snow-capped mountains — feel like alien worlds. Air is thinner; water boils faster. Wind scours any signs of life from sheer rock faces, and algae turns snow a strange, bloody pink. The natural forces that you shrug off at sea level, like nightfall or bad weather, become life-threatening obstacles.
Booting up Everest VR, a ne

A hacker group called Pravvy Sector reportedly accessed and leaked a massive 150GB data trove from the Central Ohio Urology Group on Twitter today, Motherboard reports. It’s unclear how many patients were affected, but the health care organization boasts that it has the "largest concentration of experienced urologists in Ohio."
The dump contained financial spreadsheets, human resource documents, and patient records. Within those records were patients’ names, addresses, phone numbers,

In 2009, Batman: Arkham Asylum managed to capture something that had eluded video games for decades: the feeling of being Batman. The brutal hand-to-hand combat, the high-tech tools and investigations, that sensation of skulking around in the dark undetected, all of it was there in video game form. It’s a tough act to follow for a new game starring the Caped Crusader, so how does a Batman game stand out? In the case of Telltale’s new Batman series, the answer is simple: focus on Bruc

Microsoft is opening up sales of its HoloLens augmented reality headset. In a blog post today, project head Alex Kipman said that all developers and business customers in the US and Canada can now order up to five HoloLens development kits apiece, instead of going through an application process. It’s taking orders through the HoloLens website, but buyers will need a Microsoft account — and $3,000 per HoloLens — to complete the purchase.
Microsoft kept HoloLens under wraps for a

Microsoft is opening up sales of its HoloLens augmented reality headset. In a blog post today, project head Alex Kipman said that all "developers and business customers" in the US and Canada can now order up to five HoloLens development kits apiece, instead of going through an application process. It’s taking orders through the HoloLens website, requiring only a Microsoft account — and, of course, $3,000 per headset.
Microsoft kept HoloLens under wraps for a long time, and it careful

The parents of actor Anton Yelchin, who was killed in a roll-away accident involving his Jeep Grand Cherokee last month, have filed a wrongful death suit against Fiat Chrysler (FCA), the car’s manufacturers, according to Reuters. But a spokesperson for FCA says the car company has yet to be served with any lawsuit.Yelchin, who was 27-years-old and can be seen in the recently released Star Trek Beyond, was killed June 19th when his Jeep accidentally rolled backward down the driveway of his

This Thursday, seven teams of researchers will face off in a live hacking challenge at Defcon, competing for a grand prize of $2 million. It’s a common sight at the conference, but this challenge comes with a twist — instead of human teams, Thursday’s challenge will be entirely automated, with experimental software programs hacking, patching, and defending networks with no human intervention.
It’s the end of a three-year project by DARPA, the experimental military researc

Everybody knows how the hero’s journey goes. Joseph Campbell laid it out clearly in 1949’s The Hero with a Thousand Faces, and countless books, films, and comics have followed the pattern: the call to adventure, the journey into the unknown, the challenges, the transformation, and the return. The villain’s journey, on the other hand, isn’t nearly as iconic and well-established. So stories where villains take center stage — like Wicked, or Henry: Portrait of a Serial

The NFL is extending its partnership with Snapchat to include the first ever sports channel for the mobile app's Discover tab. By swiping left on the app, users can now seek out NFL videos made for Snapchat alongside football news and popular topics of interest. The partnership first started in a limited fashion back in September, when Snapchat inked a deal with the sports network to help it create tailor-made content for nearly 50 regular season games.
As part of this new two-year dea

The 15-year-old porn studio Naughty America operates on a subscription model. Yes, in an age of rampant piracy when nude bodies are a Google search away, people still pay for porn. But the business isn't what it used to be. The studio and other porn sites now face the threat of extinction at the hands of tube sites, YouTube knockoffs that stream free porn alongside and behind ads for sex toys, dating apps, and more free porn.
"[Porn] tube sites have their origin in piracy," says Ian Paul, the CI

A pair of hackers have compromised their Jeep Cherokee, fooling the car into doing dangerous things like turning the steering wheel or activating the parking brake at highway speeds. It’s the same pair that hacked their Jeep remotely last year. But, because this version of the hack requires physical access to the car — in this case, through a laptop connected to the OBD II engine diagnostic port — it may not be quite as scary, except for the fact that they’re controlling

Flossing is annoying as hell, and now it turns out it might not even be that useful. Though it’s been recommended by medical professionals and the US government for decades, there’s no good evidence it actually works to prevent cavities and gum disease, The Associated Press reports.
The AP reviewed several scientific studies conducted in the past 10 years that looked at how effective flossing is. The findings show that the evidence for flossing is "weak, very unreliable," of "very lo

Both Google and Amazon have committed to developing autonomous drones that can deliver packages with minimal human oversight. Unfortunately for the tech giants, the Federal Aviation Administration does not currently allow drones in the US to operate without a human pilot or beyond that pilot's line of sight. Until today, most research, development, and testing on these projects had taken place overseas. But, as part of a White House initiative aimed at bolstering the drone industry, Google

Academy Award winner and perennial stepdad Leonardo DiCaprio played a little joke on his friend Jonah Hill recently. The joke was: "I'm a fan of yours, snapping your picture on the streets of New York City! Kidding! Actually I'm just your friend Leo!"
This joke is so dumb, sure, but also it is so good! The waddle. The hat. The half-full cup of hibiscus iced tea (or maybe a fancy cranberry juice?), sloshing perilously. The grin. The hug. The hug. So sweet!Leonardo DiCaprio running up to Jona

Microsoft's Windows 10 Anniversary Update is here and ready to download. The software maker first started testing its Anniversary Update back in December, and now all Windows 10 users get to experience the new features and improvements free of charge. Chief among them is a new Windows Ink feature. Microsoft has supported inking in Windows for years, but Windows Ink is a dedicated hub designed for devices like the Surface Pro 4, and other 2-in-1s with styluses. Windows Ink will work with your fin

Google's "Accelerated Mobile Pages," more commonly known as AMP, are meant to be a reboot of the mobile web. Designed to fix mobile webpages that suck because they're too slow, they have been available in a specialized carousel at the top of search results since February. When you click on an AMP link, you get a stripped-down, faster version of the article you wanted — often delivered directly from Google's own caching servers.
Now, Google has announced that it plans to expand the delivery

Snapchat started making location-specific photo filters a couple years ago, and today it's doing the same thing for stickers. It announced a new feature today called geostickers, which are stickers that'll only be available in specific locations.
For now, Snapchat is starting with 10 major cities: New York, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Honolulu, London, Paris, Sydney, São Paulo, Riyadh, and Washington, DC. Just like normal stickers, geostickers can be sent in chat messages,

At a number of different points in Netflix’s Stranger Things, a fantastic new drama that builds upon a nostalgia for 1980s science fiction films, the viewer is asked, for one reason or another, to suspend their disbelief. Why does Wynona Rider’s distraught mother character own so many desk lamps? How does a supernaturally gifted 11-year-old devour five double-sized boxes of Eggos in a single afternoon? There is one thing that the show never asks of its viewers, though, and that&rsquo

We finally made it to the season finale! Will JoJo choose Robby, the former competitive swimmer, or Jordan, the former NFL quarterback? By the end of this post we will know, and I will have updated my resume to "Former Bachelorette Recapper." Sweet relief!
This episode is three-hours long, an entire hour longer than a normal episode of The Bachelorette. This is an interesting choice by the producers, because three hours is the exact amount of time it takes to feel a resigned indifference to this

The Tilt Brush virtual reality painting tool is now also a trippy music visualization tool. An update today will add what the developers call an "audio reactive" mode, which makes brush strokes pulse to the beat of any music that’s played on your computer. While it doesn’t seem hugely complex on its face, the video above shows some fairly amazing possibilities for Tilt Brush pros.
This new feature is one more thing that separates virtual painting from its physical counterpart, and on

I had never heard of Nextdoor when I lived in New York City. Social media services catering to individual neighborhoods weren’t useful in an apartment building where most tenants lasted a year, and longtime residents kept to themselves. In my first year in Texas, however, I’ve regularly relied on Nextdoor, along with my neighborhood’s private Facebook group and the handful of sites that provide hyper-local support.I’m not the first to say local online forums are the bulle

Pinch to zoom is intuitive at this point. So is a double tap to like. But maybe eventually these gestures will become a relic of past technology as we develop new ways to interact with devices or, woah, switch to voice control. Qeexo, a company based in California, thinks it has a revolutionary way to use touchscreens through its new software TouchTools. With TouchTools, users can access virtual tools with a gesture, including a tape measure, ruler, magnifying glass, camera, pen, and eraser.
Thi

Telegram is one of the most popular chat applications in Iran, boasting tens of millions of accounts — but those users may not be as secure as they think. According to researchers Collin Anderson and Claudio Guarnieri, who spoke first to Reuters, dozens of those users have been compromised by an SMS redirection hack. Once performed, the redirection allows attackers full access to a given Telegram account, allowing them to read archived messages and contact lists, regardless of whether end-

Samsung's new Galaxy Note 7 comes with all of the features that the Note smartphone line is known for. It has a large display, works with the S Pen stylus, and is water resistant. But it also has another, long-rumored feature that is slowly finding its way into more consumer electronics: an iris scanner.
The Galaxy Note 7 uses both an IR camera module and a proximity sensor to recognize when its owner is holding the phone up to his or her face (from 25 to 35 centimeters, or about a foot away). T

Samsung is finally officially putting its first 360-degree camera on sale in the United States. The Gear 360, which was announced at Mobile World Congress back in February, will hit retail shelves on August 19th, along with the new Galaxy Note 7 and the new version of the Gear VR. The camera will cost $349.
Previously, the Gear 360 was only available in Korea, Singapore, and New Zealand, though Samsung did sell some units at VidCon in June. The camera uses two ultra-wide 195-degree len

Samsung today announced an updated version of the Gear VR, the company’s mobile virtual reality headset. It features a new touchpad, USB Type-C compatibility, and a slightly wider field of view. The revamped Gear VR will still cost $99, and it goes on sale August 19th, with preorders opening up tomorrow.
Like with past iterations of the device, there aren’t any major changes to this version of the Gear VR. The new Gear VR is being announced alongside Samsung’s newest phone &mda

Samsung has today officially launched the Galaxy Note 7, the latest in its line of stylus-equipped flagship smartphones. The Note 7, which is not called the Note 6, blends many of the features from last year’s Note 5 with the design and waterproofing of this year’s excellent S7 Edge. The Note 7 will be available from all four major carriers on August 19th, with preorders starting tomorrow, August 3rd. Samsung says that pricing will be commensurate with prior Note devices and will be

 A San Francisco startup called iBeat has raised $1.5 million in seed funding to make a smartwatch that constantly monitors a wearer’s heart and, in the event of cardiac arrest, checks in on them, and notifies loved ones and emergency responders. Ryan Howard, who previously founded and was CEO of the electronic health records venture Practice Fusion, said he started iBeat after losing… Read More

Logitech's Create Keyboard Case is already one of the most popular keyboards for the 12.9-inch iPad Pro, so it makes sense that it would make a smaller version for the 9.7-inch iPad Pro. The keyboard connects to your iPad using the Smart Connectors, so there's no Bluetooth pairing needed; features a backlit keyboard powered by the iPad Pro; a dedicated Apple Pencil holder; and doesn't need to be charged.
The Create Keyboard Case also comes with a row of iPad shortcut keys, and can act as a