Technology news

Grindr, the gay hookup app, is officially coming to a T-shirt near you. The brand, the most popular app for gay men for a few years now, is now venturing into a fashion brand. Image:GRINDRStarting now, the app, in collaboration with Print All Over Me, will offer 30 items including sweatshirts, bandanas, track pants and jockstraps. Called The Varsity Collection, all proceeds from the brand (ranging from $25-$130) will support Athlete Ally's Principle 6 campaign. The campaign started in 2014

Not to be outdone by President Obama’s superb Spotify playlist, today the Vice President got in on the action and released a summer playlist of his own. Or, at least we think it was him; it could have just as easily been a hipster after a breakup. You be the judge: Stay With Me — Sam Smith We Take Care of Our Own — Bruce Springsteen Come Together — The Beatles Hello — Adele Til It Happens To You — La

At this point it's pretty clear: smart mirrors won't be a thing for a while, and it's not for lack of trying. There have been a number of Kickstarters that have tried and failed to get a consumer version of the tech we've seen in sci-fi movies like Minority Report — and shown off by some intrepid engineers — and nothing has come of it so far. The latest company to throw its hat in the ring is Perseus, which is claiming it has built the world's first smart mirror (it's

MADISON, Wis. — A federal court in Wisconsin on Friday overturned the conviction of a man found guilty of helping his uncle kill Teresa Halbach in a case profiled in the Netflix documentary Making a Murderer.
The U.S. District Court in Milwaukee overturned Brendan Dassey's conviction and ordered him freed within 90 days unless prosecutors decide to retry him. A spokeswoman for the state Department of Justice, which was handling the case, did not immediately return a message seeking comment

Simone Manuel swam her way to a historic victory in Rio on Thursday, holding off world record holder Cate Campbell of Australia to grab 100 meter freestyle gold in a tie with Canada's Penny Oleksiak. 
Manuel clocked in at a stunning 52.70 seconds. It was a new Olympic record.
It was even more significant than that, though: Manuel became the first female African-American swimmer to win gold in an individual event.
SEE ALSO: Simone Manuel overcome with emotion after historic swim for America

Three days after the PlayStation 4 launch, space-exploration game ‘No Man’s Sky’ (NMS) has made its way to PC. After more than 8,500 “mostly negative” (just changed to “mixed) reviews on Steam, Hello Games is probably wishing it would have waited just a touch longer to iron out the kinks. Available on Steam and GoG, the game has been overrun with bad reviews detailing everything from frame rate issues to difficulty re-mapping buttons on the mouse and key

GUEST: Artificial intelligence, or A.I., has been around since the start of computing and has had many false starts. The reality did not live up to the expectations set by science fiction. Accordingly, for many years, the majority of people’s understanding of A.I. was confined to university laboratories, corporate skunk works, research parks, and that movie with Haley Joel Osment and Jude Law. Attempts to introduce A.I. products and services into the marketplace and for the broader benefit

The swamplands of Louisiana have given rise to a swirling weather system that closely resembles a tropical storm. It is causing a historic deluge to hit the state, with some areas near Baton Rouge already seeing nearly a foot of rain as of noon on Friday, with another foot or more still to come. 
Rivers are already rising to record levels, and are likely to keep climbing into uncharted territory. With the National Weather Service warning of "severe to catastrophic" flooding from what it des

There are a record 49 out LGBTQ athletes at the Rio Olympics, the greatest number of out athletes since the modern games began in 1896. 
Just a week into the Olympic games, some commentators have gone so far to call Rio the most LGBTQ-friendly games yet. While their assertions may seem premature, their conclusions are backed up by hard data and strong qualitative viral evidence. There are more openly queer athletes than ever before, and there are also more proud queer moments — includ

In case you haven't noticed, Donald Trump's got jokes. Lots of jokes.
When he called on Russia to find Hillary's missing emails he was being classically sarcastic. When he said that "Second Amendment people" could do something about Clinton, his former campaign manager Corey Lewandowski called it "a joke." Most recently, Trump corrected those who were upset by his claim that President Obama was the founder of ISIS — it was merely another example of sarcasm.
SEE ALSO: If Donald Trump was th

ANALYSIS: This week’s “cat and mouse” game between Facebook and ad blocking software is being framed as a battle over the best interests of Facebook users. But caught in the crossfire are publishers, and by extension their readers. And when it’s over, publishers will be little more than collateral damage.
The publisher-Facebook relationship that once seemed so mutually beneficial now becomes “complicated,” to say the least. Even as recent news f

A puppy pooping on your living room rug in the middle of the night sounds pretty nightmarish in itself. What's exponentially worse is when that poop gets spread all over your house while you're sleeping. 
Jesse Newton, a dad in Little Rock, Arkansas, shared the horrifying tale of when his Roomba did just that.
SEE ALSO: Parents everywhere will get this mom's back-to-school photoshoot
In a hilarious longform opus on Facebook, Newton shared his devastating story.Newton explained that his Room

It’s Friday afternoon in August. Some inexplicably over productive colleague has scheduled you to join a meeting you don’t really need to be in. You need to pay attention, but if you took ten seconds here or two minutes there to zone out, that would be okay. You, my friend, should put SPACEPLAN in a browser tab right now.
It is, as Andy Baio describes, it, a "clicker game." That means that you will do precisely one thing most of the time: click a mouse button. But as you do, a game m

Human brains and machine brains are different. Human brains are really good at critical analysis. Machine brains are really good at working with lots of data. Human brains are power efficient. Machine brains need 100 million times more power than human brains to perform similar cognitive tasks.
That's why researchers and companies have been interested in chips with structures that mimic the human brain, also known as "neuromorphic computing." IBM's TrueNorth is one of those chips. It has 4,096 c

This post is not for the faint-hearted. A man named Jesse Newton has a Roomba. He also has a dog named Evie. For apparently the first time ever, Evie pooped in the living room. At 1:30 AM, the Roomba started its house-wide cleaning cycle. You can see where this is going: not only did the Roomba spray poop everywhere by virtual of its rotating brushes, but it dragged it all over the apartment during its not-so-cleaning run. If you haven’t figured it out by now, that’s what the h

You know what's better than one incredible, groundbreaking Simone?
Yep. You got it.
The incomparably badass Simone Biles led the U.S. women's gymnastics team to gold on Tuesday. On Thursday, she and teammate Aly Raisman took gold and silver medals in the women's all-around.
SEE ALSO: We asked an Olympian what it's like to spend 4 years training for RioImage:ezra show/getty imagesAnd when Simone Manuel took gold in the women's 100-meter freestyle on Thursday, she became the first African-American

Olympic medalists traditionally cradle flower bouquets as they hold up gold, silver or bronze medals from a tiered platform. But not this year in Brazil.
Instead, the world’s best gymnasts, runners, ping-pongers and trampolinists are clutching small 3-D sculptures of Rio's Olympics logo.
SEE ALSO: Olympic athletes are using cupping to heal their muscles, but should you?
The switch from ephemeral flowers to long-lasting trinkets is a small part of the Olympic organizing committee’s bi

We're well past pretending that the Olympic Village isn't the best place for fit, attractive athletes to seek out and hook up with other fit, attractive athletes. 
Rio Olympics organizers are well aware of this fact, judging by the massive 450,000-condom order meant for some of the 11,559 competitors who might require one— or 12.
SEE ALSO: OK, let's talk about sex at the Rio Olympics
To put that in perspective, there are triple the amount of condoms available at the Rio Olympics than

If you’re horrified by the idea of actually displaying your $299 (minimum) smartwatch, this genius has a solution — wear two watches, on the same wrist, at the same time. At first glance it seems like an asinine solution to a problem that could be fixed by just choosing a single watch, but as you look deeper you’ll discover: it’s still an asinine solution to a problem that could be solved by just choosing a watch. The system is intended for those that admire the utility

Star forwards Alex Morgan and Christen Press missed penalties Friday as the U.S. Women's National Team (USWNT) suffered its most shocking Olympics loss in history. 
The heavily favored USWNT's defeat by Sweden means it won't be featured in the Olympics gold medal game for the first time ... ever. 
SEE ALSO: Olympics official on Rio's green diving pool: 'Chemistry is not an exact science'
The USWNT won gold in 1996, the first year women's soccer was included in the Summer Olympics. It w

And then there were six. The League of Legends playoffs begin this weekend in both North America and Europe. Which teams will get through their first hurdle and get to square off against one of the top two from their regions in the semis? Here are our best guesses. 
North America
Cloud9 versus Team Envy
After some stumbles in the middle of the split, Cloud9 have returned to their dominating form. They won convincingly over Team Liquid and Echo Fox at the end of the season, and seem to be ba

No Man’s Sky debuted today on PC, but its performance is leaving many people disappointed.
Developer Hello Games launched No Man’s Sky — its universe-exploring space simulator — on the Steam distribution channel this morning, and some players are already reporting troubles with a stuttering framerate. Sony’s PlayStation 4 home gaming console got it earlier this week, and that iteration does not suffer from the same problems. This has led to only 29 percent of player

For actors who play wily villains in Suicide Squad, Margot Robbie and Will Smith are not very good at insulting each other.
Still, they gave it their best shot on BBC Radio 1's "Playground Insults" segment from Scott Mills' show. Smith, who seems like a nice dude, really tanked it on this one, only commenting on Robbie's apparent fondness for Finding Dory (which, of course, is a compliment, not an insult).
Robbie did manage a pretty good "Big Willy" joke.How the mind-binding fight scene in 'Inc

GoldenEye 007, the beloved N64 first-person shooter, has been recreated in high-definition glory by a team of dedicated fans over the course of 10 years. The mod, known as GoldenEye: Source, is free to download starting today and it features 25 recreated maps, 10 different multiplayer modes, and redesigned versions of the original game's 28 weapons. It was created using Valve's Source engine, the same set of tools used to create Counter Strike and Half-Life games. So it's a massive step up

We were really excited when we learned that the soundtrack to Stranger Things was officially being released. What’s even more exciting is the fact that it’s being released in two parts, and you can pick up the first one today.For now, the only place to get the first volume is on iTunes: it will come out in physical form on September 16th, while the second volume will be released digitally on August 19th and physically on September 23rd.While it broke from the show’s nostalgic t

Some of the world's best Super Smash Bros. players and the series' biggest fans are gathering at Super Smash Con Friday through Sunday for some intense tournament action featuring all four SSB games.
SEE ALSO: Upsets and close wins make Evo's Street Fighter V finale mesmerizing
Competitive SSB is being broadcast live all weekend from the Dulles Expo Center in Virginia as the top players compete in singles and doubles tournaments on four different Twitch channels. Most of the action will unfold o

In the distant reaches of the cosmos, two black holes collide and merge in a violent crash. We can't see it or feel it, but the shock of that collision sends ripples propagating far and wide through the fabric of space and time. 
Those distortions, known as gravitational waves, affect every molecule they come across — warping their size by a fraction of a proton. However, those changes are only detectible by some of the most highly calibrated and sensitive tools ever built by humans.

Imagine a ‘Persuade’ button for every critical moment in your life. One click to send the perfect Tinder pickup line. One click to convince your boss it’s time for a raise. One click to persuade your significant other that you’re actually right this time.
In the last 10 years, we’ve seen an explosion of communication apps. It’s easier than ever to start a conversation. But what do we actually say to move a conversation forward? It’s all about persuasion:

“It was exactly as if someone had farted right in my face.”
If you’ve ever seen a sizzle real for a virtual reality headset or, really, any modern piece of tech, you’ll get a laugh at this new video for South Park: The Fractured But Whole, the upcoming role-playing game based on the animated show. The video shows off a device called the Nosulus Rift, which straps around your noises and emits fart smells.The Fractured But Whole comes out for the PlayStation 4, Xbox On

Bitcoin may not change the world on its own, but the technology that runs the virtual currency very well could. 
That's what the World Economic Forum determined in a report released Friday. The group, best known for its annual meeting in Davos, Switzerland, includes various members of the global financial elite. A wide range of banking, consulting and financial executives from Deloitte, JP Morgan Chase, Deutsche Bank, Barclays and other firms contributed to the yearlong project. 
"Our

For a brief moment, there was a man on stage during the kickoff show for Fifth Harmony's 7/27 tour on Coney Island in New York City.  
He kicked a few beach balls that had made their way onto the stage back into the crowd, and quickly disappeared into the night, barely registering in the thunderous roar of girl power. 
In the crowd, girls in their brand new, baby pink tour baseball caps witnessed the reemergence of the pop girl group as an unstoppable force of empowerment. 
The gr

We might not have a Frank Ocean album (your anger is justified) and we're still in the dark about its release date. 
But thanks to an Instagram post from the elusive R&B singer's mother, we at least now know he's alive. Phew.
SEE ALSO: Frank Ocean is messing with us all again, this time with a livestreamAs Vulture pointed out, Katonya Breaux posted an Instagram video featuring he-who-must-not-be-named enjoying some family time (and wine) at a restaurant in New York City.
"Embarrassing m

Part of participating in any large event is getting to walk away with an unbelievable amount of free swag (just ask anyone who’s ever been to CES.) The Olympics is no different. As an official sponsor of the 2016 Rio games, Samsung had planned to give each of the 11,200 athletes a special edition of the Galaxy S7 – but reports have surfaced that North Korean officials have thwarted this effort. The phones were originally provided to all athletes to carry during the opening para

Welcome to another GamesBeat weekly roundup! This time, we check out the new Xbox One S, Pokémon Go gets a big update, and we look at Titanfall 2’s single-player campaign. We also made a music playlist for Spotify’s new Gaming channel, so please check that out!
Have a great weekend!
Pieces of flair and opinions
The DeanBeat: Where Pokémon Go should go next
Spotify intoduces a new gaming portal, featuring a playlist that GamesBeat made
Hearthstone&rsq

Over 28,000 people have signed a change.org petition to turn Harambe, the slain gorilla and runner-up meme of the summer, into a pokémon.
Started two days ago by a man named Eric CreamyMemes, the petition asks Nintendo and The Pokémon Company to bring Harambe to life in a short but persuasive letter.The petition includes mock-up designs of what Harambe might look like as a pokémon. He'd start off as "Hambo," and evolve into "Harambe," with the main abilities of "Me

Earlier this week, it was revealed that researchers at the University of Birmingham had cracked the (rather poor) encryption scheme used by millions of Volkswagens for their remote unlock key fobs. That’s not good. But what’s also not good is that it’s not really new, and that it’s not limited to VW.
In the VW attack, the researchers were able to extract a cryptographic key that is one of four shared across tens of millions of Volkswagen cars. Then, they were able to eave

In the future, your tattoos could be as functional as they are expressive. MIT, in partnership with Microsoft, created a new touch interface, DuoSkin, that allows temporary tattoos to interact with smartphones or computers, display output based on body temperature changes and even transmit data using NFC. Cindy Hsin-Liu Kao, PhD student at MIT, says the tattoos are not only trendy, but cheap enough “change and edit your appearance whenever you want.” In Taiwan, Kao notes, there&rsqu

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93 percent of millennials are spending their time social networking online, according to research firm Statista. Not a surprising discovery, considering the same

Live from New York, it's new head writers!
Saturday Night Live just announced that writing supervisors Sarah Schneider and Chris Kelly have been promoted – they will be the co-head writers for season 42 of the live comedy show.
SEE ALSO: Taran Killam and Jay Pharoah leaving 'SNL'
The show released the news via Twitter and Facebook.This announcement follows the news that cast members Jay Pharoah, Taran Killam and Jon Rudnitsky will not be returning to the show this fall.
NBC has not yet com