Technology news

You can get Wi-Fi almost anywhere nowadays — even on the NYC subway platform. So how about connecting an entire volcano to the internet? General Electric is working on that. The goal is not to allow tourists to more easily post Instagram photos, but to gather data to better predict when a volcano will erupt.
GE is partnering with explorer and filmmaker Sam Cossman and the Nicaraguan government to install about 80 wireless sensors inside one of the country’s active volcanoes. The volc

Tesla’s earnings for the second quarter of 2016 are out, and the company looks to be assuring investors that things are on track, both for the existing Model S and Model X cars and the upcoming Model 3.
Tesla says it has completed the design of the Model 3 and that it has moved on to tooling, production planning, and validation. These are all routine parts of developing a new car. The company said that some Model 3 production equipment, including stamping and paint shop components, is alre

Developers have earned more than $50 billion through Apple's App Store, and that number appears to be growing quicker than ever. Apple CEO Tim Cook said the milestone followed a month of record payments in July. That's part of why Apple's been able to hit $50 billion in payouts just six or so months after cracking $40 billion.
The stat is very much meant to paint the App Store as being as healthy and vibrant as ever, despite concern that we've hit something of an app fatigue. It does r

SpaceX and the United Launch Alliance may finally compete with one another for the military’s business. The United States Air Force is officially taking bids from launch providers for its third GPS-III satellite; the probe is slated to go up in 2019, and it needs a rocket to carry it into space. Since SpaceX and the United Launch Alliance (ULA) are the only two companies authorized to launch military payloads, they may be competing directly for the Air Force launch contract. Bids for

After months of tweaks and improvements, Apple Music has exited its extended public beta period for Android. The streaming service, which first launched in June 2015, opened to Android users back in November of last year. The app was labeled as a beta then, and Apple has spent the time since adding select Android-only features while bringing the software up to speed with its iOS and desktop counterparts. Now, with the minor addition of equalizer settings, Apple has decided to remove th

Basis, the fitness tracking company that Intel purchased in 2014, has today issued a recall on its Peak wearable due to a risk of overheating and potential injury to the wearer. The Peak, which was launched in September, 2014, is the only product currently in Basis’ lineup.
Basis had sent a notice to Peak customers on June 13th telling them to no longer wear the device because of the burn risk. The company had hoped to resolve the issue with a software fix, but it now says that is not

 Basis Peak, a fitness watch tracking your health and sleep habits, is now being recalled by the company after reports of overheating.
The Intel subsidiary first sent a statement about the overheating issues mid-June and is now asking customers to stop wearing their watches and is shutting down service “immediately.”
“We had hoped to update the software on your watch… Read More

It's a sad day in Waterloo, folks: Kim Kardashian West, international celebrity and staunch defender of the physical keyboard's merits, has given up on her beloved BlackBerry Bold. While Kardashian has other phones — she uses an iPhone 6S for pictures and selfies, among other tasks — the Bold has served as her business workhorse for years: "If you write an email and you need to type fast — I like having the board," said Kardashian at Recode's 2014 Code/Mobile conference. "

Sony's experiment with PlayStation-based original programming could be coming to an end with the cancelation of Powers, the service's first and only TV show. Co-creator and comic author Brian Michael Bendis broke the news on Twitter this afternoon. "This is hard to tweet, but word is that [Powers] is sadly no more," wrote Bendis. " I'll type more about it later, but thank you ALL for your support. Such a fantastic personal experience that you gifted all of us." The show starred Sharlto Copley as

Facebook Live has brought live-streaming to some unlikely places, from a coup in Turkey to a Congressional sit-in to the International Space Station. Now it has found its most unexpected home of all: prison.
In a Facebook Live video obtained by PIX11, an inmate at Rikers Island in New York City shows off the living conditions inside the prison using a smuggled cell phone. In the video, which live-streamed on July 22nd, he shows his uniform, food, and jail cell. At a certain point, the inmate als

The internet is, among other things, a replacement for the outdated smoke break. We all need an occasional distraction from the daily grind, and live streams are particularly good at meeting this need. They feel present, important, and communal. It’s how a feed of bears catching fish or a slowly blooming Corpse Flower can turn into bona fide phenomena. This week’s best break is the World Yo-Yo Contest, streaming to us today through Saturday from the Renaissance Hotel in the lovely Cl

Microsoft decided to target Google's Chrome browser back in June with a new campaign designed to highlight how bad the browser is for your laptop battery life. While Microsoft's marketing effort was initially limited to a YouTube video and associated website, the software maker has started to take things a step further in its battery battle in recent weeks.
Windows 10 users are reporting that the tips feature of the OS is generating notifications to try and convince people to switch away from us

Bachelor in Paradise is a television show in which the discarded men and women from The Bachelor and The Bachelorette come to a place called "Paradise" (technically a resort in Mexico) for a second (or sometimes third, and occasionally fourth) shot at love. Each week, they pair off in a game of sexy musical chairs. Throughout the season, the surplus human beings are granted blissful reentry to the real world, and two more men or women are added to the cast as tribute. Who knows how long this cou

This week, Eric Greitens won the Republican nomination for Missouri governor. To better introduce himself to more voters from the nation’s finest state, Greitens has published many YouTube videos. Here’s one.
The former Navy SEAL doesn’t speak much. Instead Greitens' credentials and beliefs are presented through text and voiceover.
"Eric Greitins, a governor who will set his sites on politics as usual." GUN "Reduce spending, create jobs, protect life." GUN. "Defend the second a

One of the joys of Google's wealth of 3D mapping data is being able to explore far-flung locations from the comfort of your laptop. And the company's latest experiment takes that idea a step further: what if you could turn those maps into interactive, educational playgrounds?
The result is a new Android app called Verne: The Himalayas. It's sort of like a cross between a really simple mobile game and a 3D map of the world's highest mountain range. You control an adorable, rotund yeti and can wan

Sales of the OnePlus 3 will be suspended throughout Europe and in Hong Kong for a month beginning next week as the company said it needs "to give inventory time to replenish." OnePlus says sales of its flagship device will be suspended from August 9th until September 12th in the following European countries; Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Estonia, France, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, Netherlands, Poland, Portugal,

Yesterday, the US Air Force said its fleet of F-35A fighter jets are ready for battle — finally. The planes were actually ordered 15 years ago, but their development was plagued by numerous delays and cost overruns. The Air Force is the second branch of the US military after the Marine Corps to approve the plane for combat, and the jets are now deployed at the Hill Air Force Base in Utah as part of the 34th Fighter Squadron. From there they can be launched into combat operations

A short video that was posted to Vimeo and Reddit this morning appears to give us our first glimpse of GoPro’s long-awaited Hero 5 camera. The video is the same kind of quick how-to that usually lives in the company’s mobile apps, as it shows a step-by-step process of how to connect the camera to a smartphone. It’s just nine seconds long, and it only shows the back of the camera. But considering how little we know about the Hero 5, which is supposed to be released in time for t

 About one year ago, Apple unveiled a diversity site featuring its employee representation data and a letter from Apple CEO Tim Cook about the company’s commitment to diversity and inclusion. Today, Apple has revealed its latest diversity numbers, showing slight but consistent improvement year over year.
Worldwide, Apple is 68 percent male and 32 percent female (last year, Apple was 69… Read More

1Password, one of the best password managers out there, is switching up its business model. Today the app's developer AgileBits is introducing a monthly subscription for individuals priced at $2.99 per month. That's cheaper than the $5 / month family plan that 1Password launched earlier this year, its first foray into subscriptions. For that $2.99 fee, you get access to 1Password's apps on every platform (both desktop and mobile), which means you don't need to worry about paying for individ

As the CDC issues travel warnings for Miami, Florida, the National Institutes of Health are set to begin the first human trials for an experimental vaccine for Zika. Last week, Florida health officials identified four cases of the Zika virus that were likely transmitted by mosquitoes, which will make efforts to combat the illness even more difficult.
The first human trials for the vaccine will take place in Maryland and Georgia, according to Technology Review, and will involve 80 peopl

For three years, a cartoon dog has sat patiently in a house fire. He smiles as he says, "This is fine." Today, however, the dog changes his stance. Today, says the dog, "this is not fine."
The "This is fine" meme comes from KC Green’s 2013 webcomic "On Fire." The meme rarely includes the final panels, in which the dog’s flesh melts from his arms and skull, like chocolate syrup running down an ice cream sundae.Instead, the meme serves, as we wrote earlier this summer, "as shortha

 Following yesterday’s launch of a new version of the Skype Windows 10 application, Microsoft today announced an expanded collection of its “Skype bots,” the automated chat assistants that it introduced earlier this year in a limited preview. The new bots include those that can help you make travel arrangements, locate event tickets, pull in information from other… Read More

 After a few months of testing the waters, Kik is still bullish on chatbots and has quite a few reasons to be.
Just last May at TechCrunch Disrupt NY, Kik CEO Ted Livingston divulged that developers had built over 6,000 chatbots on the platform. Fast forward a few months and the popular messaging app has announced today that more than 1.8 billion messages have already been exchanged… Read More

YouTube Red, the subscription service released last summer, is finally being integrated with YouTube Kids. The Kids app already lets parents plunk their kids in front of the screen without having to worry that their little ones will stumble onto some unsavory content. With the addition of Red, I can now offline some videos for a long car drive, and hand my boys a smartphone knowing they won't be exposed to ads for junk food that would rot their little teeth.
YouTube hasn't released any numbers y