Technology news

Everyone has an opinion about pumpkin spice lattes, but here's the only thing about them that is objectively true: I should not have to wait until September to buy one.
the world's most controversial drink is pretty much fine, and i just kinda want one so chillPSLs ("P"umpkin "S"pice "L"attes) have suffered at least 18 backlashes since their inception: they’re overpriced; they don’t have real pumpkin in them; they’re for basic bitches; please stop ignoring chai lattes; they con

British researchers have discovered a troubling trend in East Antarctica: As air temperatures become warmer each summer, more and deeper lakes are showing up atop Langhovde Glacier.
Their study, published this month in the journal Geophysical Research Letters, is the first to monitor the meltwater pools for an extended period of time in that part of the icy continent.
SEE ALSO: A lengthening crack is threatening to cause an Antarctic ice shelf to collapse
The findings are significant because the

The new Tesla Model S P100D is the quickest car in the world with an acceleration of 0-60 in 2.5 seconds. As the name suggests, the 100 kWh battery is the largest in any Model S, and has a range of 315 miles. Tesla says it’s “the longest range production electric vehicle by far.” If you’re into SUVs, the new, larger battery is also making its way to the Model X. Because of the heft on an X, you’ll only get 289 miles per charge. Of course, none of this com

Chipotle employees, tweet your hearts out. 
The National Labor Relations Board ruled that Chipotle can't fire employees for airing their grievances with the company on Twitter or other social networks. More than that, the company can't prohibit employees from posting about their jobs on social media at all. 
Chipotle's social media policy, which prevented employees from posting disparaging information about the company, violated federal labor laws, the board decided. 
The question

Knitting and stamp collecting are lame. Instead, these baby kangaroos pursue the best hobby of all — scratching.
Madeleine and Sebastian, who live at the Kangaroo Sanctuary in central Australia, love to scratch. They love to scratch so much.
SEE ALSO: Kangaroo majestically gliding across the beach is strangely calming
They love to scratch themselves.They could scratch all day. Do you dare them? They could. It wouldn't be hard.They are even willing to scratch (read: clean) each other. It's

It's time to give The Cincinnati Zoo a break.
It's been three months since the death of Harambe, the western lowland gorilla who was shot and killed after grabbing a 4-year-old boy and dragging him across his exhibit, but people are still bombarding The Cincinnati Zoo with harsh words, petitions and protest memes.
On Monday night, the zoo deleted its social media accounts to prove once and for all that it does not find the continual Harambe jokes amusing in the slightest.
SEE ALSO: Guys, your Ha

Decorating your locker is so last year.
At West Orange High School in Winter Garden, Florida, seniors are allowed to paint their parking spots. The class of 2017 got particularly creative with the tradition – namely one Drake fan.
SEE ALSO: Teacher absolutely nails it with new homework policy
The craze is clearly sweeping the school – nearly every spot looks painted.
The award for most impressive spot has to go to Martha Caldera, whose Drake-inspired spot is just perfect. The wo

Humans may prefer to work with robots that can communicate and express emotions, even if that means they're less efficient, according to a new study from University College London and the University of Bristol.
Researchers tested how people reacted when robots messed up a given task. They had participants work with three different versions (A, B and C) of the same robot, BERT2. Each would bring the humans ingredients to make an omelet: BERT A never erred, but BERT B and C both dropped an egg at

In Frank Ocean’s zine, Boys Don’t Cry, he frames Blond(e) as a revisionist history of his youth — one he spent dreaming of a life a lot like the one he actually has now, head resting on tear-soaked pillowcases. 
In peak Frank Ocean fashion, he’s romanticizing those years now. Bleach your hair blond and then dye it to match the Emerald City — the grass is always greener. 
SEE ALSO: Joey Bada$$ serves up a dramatic interpretation of Kanye's McDonald's poem
O

Sorry nerds, but the days of claiming "Phone X" dramatically smoking "Phone Z" are over.
Nobody cares which phone has a faster clock speed or more cores or more RAM. Speeds and feeds haven't mattered in years. 
SEE ALSO: No, the Samsung Galaxy Note7 doesn't 'need' to be cheaper than iPhone
Phones are now fast enough to do all of the daily tasks like web browsing, messaging, email, playing music, taking photos, playing games, etc., that a speed test only tells one increasingly meaningless pa

A North Carolina state police officer fatally shot a deaf man named Daniel Harris late last week. And many people, including Harris's family, have questioned whether the officer shot Harris because he couldn't hear the officer and therefore didn't respond to what the officer said. 
The officer, Jermaine Saunders, flashed his lights behind Harris in an attempt to pull the man over for allegedly speeding on an interstate in Charlotte. 
SEE ALSO: Emotional TV interview captures the frustr

I’m tired of Sony making me look bad. I spent 3,000 words two years ago talking up the Xperia Z3 and Z3 Compact and their excellent hardware design and camera sensors. Today, Sony lets both me and its loyal customers down by not including either phone in its Android Nougat upgrade plans. Now, I know Nougat isn’t any sort of life-altering update, but it does have a few niceties to it and Sony’s neglect signals a bigger issue. If the Z3 family isn’t even on Sony’s (pr

I was briefly surprised to learn the latest controversy involves Hillary Clinton, U2 lead singer Bono, and the International Space Station. Then I remembered that the 2016 US presidential election has been a circus for a full year, and this fit with its ongoing theme: nonsense.
Here's the long-short of it. Bono apparently donated to the Clinton Foundation for the same reason I suspect most rich people donate millions of dollars to politicians and Super PACs: because they want to ingratiate thems

Following rumors Tesla was readying a bigger, more powerful battery pack for its Model S and Model X vehicles, Elon Musk surprised no one when he revealed a 100-kilowatt-hour battery pack Tuesday afternoon.
The larger battery will allow for both more range as well as faster acceleration. In fact, the new Model S P100D with Ludicrous mode is good for 315 miles of range on a single charge.
What's more, that very same car is now the third-fastest accelerating production car of all time. T

Facebook is testing a new feature for its popular ‘Messenger’ platform. The feature, confirmed by BuzzFeed News today, allows you to connect with others from within the app without actually adding them to your friend list on Facebook itself. In essence, the feature allows Messenger users to connect with each other on the app, as if they were already friends, but without actually adding them as friends on Facebook proper. Facebook already allows this, although in a modified format. W

When Ethiopian runner Feyisa Lilesa raised his arms and closed his fists to form a cross as he reached the finish line of the Olympics marathon in Rio de Janeiro on Sunday, he didn't just broadcast his own solidarity with the Oromo protests in Ethiopia. 
Lilesa turned a global spotlight on the plight of the Oromo people, winning himself many admirers for doing so. Now some of those admirers want to help, and a crowdfunding effort for Lilesa has raised more than $100,000 in just two days.&nb

When Ethiopian runner Feyisa Lilesa raised his arms and closed his fists to form a cross as he reached the finish line of the Olympics marathon in Rio de Janeiro on Sunday, he didn't just broadcast his own solidarity with the Oromo protests in Ethiopia. 
Lilesa turned a global spotlight on the plight of the Oromo people, winning himself many admirers for doing so. Now some of those admirers want to help, and a crowdfunding effort for Lilesa has raised more than $100,000 in just two days.&nb

Microbiologists at the University of Massachusetts Amherst have found a way to make electrical wires that are thousands of times thinner than a human hair. 
The secret? The "microbial nanowires," or little hair-like protein filaments, or pili, produced by genetically modified soil bacteria, Geobacter sulfurreducens. Researchers manipulated the bacteria to spin out very fine but highly conductive wires composed of natural amino acids. 
They replaced two naturally occurring amino acids i

It looks like Samsung will soon have its own home device to compete with the Amazon Echo and Google’s incoming Home. Called a Scoop, the hardware is very reminiscent of an Amazon Echo Dot; it’s short, but packs all the same punch you’d expect from a smart home device. There’s a speaker and volume buttons up top, a microphone around front and ports (likely for power and perhaps hard-wiring to devices so you can play music) around back. The oddest part of this one is

There’s nothing like walking into a souvenir shop, running your hands along the personalized keychains, and feeling the rush of finding a tiny piece of plastic with your name on it. Am I right, Toms and Sarahs of the world? Up top!
Okay, I wouldn’t know. In so many displays, Dale skips ahead to Dan, and there's never a Dami. I've been deprived of this small treat for way too many summers. Luckily for uniquely named people like me, Greg May has been on a mission to let everyone experi

An investigation is underway after an employee at a Louisville, Kentucky-area Taco Bell restaurant allegedly refused service to several police officers. 
SEE ALSO: Cowboy wrongly feels no shame about riding a horse into Taco Bell
According to the president of the Louisville Metro Police's union, the River City Fraternal Order of Police, five officers were refused service at the fast food restaurant.
FOP president Dave Mutchler told WAVE:
Mashable has reached out to the Louisville Police Dep

Sony is bringing official DualShock 4 support to Windows PCs and OS X. Today, alongside the announcement of PlayStation Now's upcoming release on Windows, the company revealed a new $24.99 USB adapter that will enable "every feature" of the PlayStation 4 gamepad. It will begin shipping in September.
Specifically, Sony says the dongle opens up full access to "buttons, analog sticks, touch pad, light bar, motion sensors, vibration, and stereo headset jack" — so long as those features ar

Websites with mobile pop-up ads, watch out. Google is cracking down on the "intrusive" advertising by knocking down those pages in its search results, the company said Tuesday. 
Any website that shows a pop-up ad that covers the site's main content — whether right when the user gets to that page or while the user is on the page — will be ranked lower in Google's search results. That applies to pop-ups users have to dismiss to continue onto a site, and advertisements that cover t

With a number of new upgrades announced today, Tesla's Model S is now the third-fastest car in the world, going from 0 to 60 MPH in just 2.5 seconds. That's only just slower than the Ferrari LaFerrari and the Porsche 918 Spyder — both million-dollar hypercars. The Model X goes faster too, from 0-60MPH in 2.9 seconds, down from 3.2 seconds.
The added speed is thanks to a long-rumored 100kWh battery option, available for order today in its Model S and Model X cars. The new bat

American Airlines conducted a rare mass-retirement of MD-80 series aircraft in its fleet on Tuesday, sending 20 of them to their resting place in the New Mexican desert. 
The planes landed one after the other Tuesday in Roswell, New Mexico, one of several airports in the Southwest that serve as huge outdoor mass graves, of sorts, for retired aircraft. 
An American Airlines spokeswoman told Mashable this was "one of the largest one-day retirements in airline history."
SEE ALSO: Delta we

It's truly a tale as old as time.
As another tropical storm flares up, the inevitable flurry of tweets mocking its name makes its way into our lives. This week, Twitter users are deriving their latest weather-related meme inspiration from Tropical Storm Gaston.
The seventh tropical storm of the 2016 Atlantic hurricane season, which formed off the African coast on Monday afternoon, just so happens to share a name with the memorably narcissistic Beauty and the Beast character, Gaston, and social m

It's uncommon for people to talk to their neighbors nowadays, but Cari and Lauri Ryding feel so lucky to know theirs.  
When the married couple recently came back from vacation to their home in Natick, Massachusetts, they discovered that their home had been vandalized. Their front porch had been egged and their rainbow pride flag stolen. The couple was crushed, so neighbors decided to show support by putting up their own rainbow flags.
SEE ALSO: The Rio Olympics are the queerest yet, but co

Thirty-two teams from North America and Europe qualified for the first-ever Overwatch Open, a $300,000 international tournament put on by ELeague and FaceIt.
The online playoffs start Aug. 24 as 16 teams from each region compete for a spot in the LAN finals at the ELeague Arena in Atlanta, which will also be broadcast live on TBS. This is ELeague's second time hosting an esports tournament and only the second major Overwatch tournament in the world.
SEE ALSO: Overwatch's growth in competitive ga

Let’s get real about #InternautDay.
Today is being celebrated as the 25th anniversary of public access to the World Wide Web, (aka Happy #InternautDay), but in the history of the internet and Web access, this is a fairly inauspicious date.  In fact, my recollection of Aug. 23, 1991, is that there really was no such thing as public Internet or something called (much more frequently then) the World Wide Web. There was certainly nothing approaching the tiniest fraction of the Web we expe

Google is about to deal a small blow to some of the most annoying ads on mobile: pop-ups and interstitials. It’s not a stretch to argue that readers don’t like these ads. So Google is making a call that websites that use pop-ups and interstitials are worse search results and may rank them lower because of it.
There are a "hundreds of signals" that go into Google’s search result rankings, so it’s not like every website that uses these ads will feel pressured to remove them

Tech is such a huge part of dating in 2016 – we meet mates on dating apps, we have endless forms of social media for researching and stalking our crushes, and bae is available 24/7 via text.
So why hasn't Siri got on board yet?
SEE ALSO: 15 times Siri was kind of a jerk
Sure, Siri's just a robot living in your phone. Maybe she's jealous that you can experience love and she can't.
But like we said, she's a robot. She isn't supposed to have emotions. It's time for Siri to get over her jealou

Ride an Uber, give five cents to the struggling taxi industry. 
Massachusetts will tax Uber with a new law that uses some of the fees to support the traditional taxi industry. 
The state is introducing a $0.20 per-trip fee for ride-hailing companies like Uber and Lyft. Ten cents from that fee will go toward local transportation infrastructure in cities and towns, 5 cents will go toward the state's Department of Public Utilities and 5 cents will support Massachusetts' taxis. 
The t

Optoma released its HD26 projector two years ago. Reviewers liked it at the time, especially considering its low price tag of $599. The HD26 did have some issues, though, like showing rainbow artifacts. But generally, it could produce a decent image under the right conditions and with the right adjustments. Now, Optoma is updating the HD26 with the release of its HD27. This time, the projector's a bit smaller; Optoma shaved off nearly an inch from its height. The HD26’s dimension

iPhone 6 and 6 Plus users are suffering from a manufacturing issue that presents itself as a gray flickering bar at the top of the screen and an unresponsive — or less responsive — touchscreen. Affectionately known as ‘touch disease,’ it’s a persistent problem that Apple seems fully aware of, but not all that willing to do anything about.Although detailed by a handful of third-party repair specialists — like iFixit — and dozens (if not hundreds) of

Prisma, the app that lets you turn regular photos into beautiful artworks with a single tap, now works offline. 
Since the app uses neural network-based tech to apply its photo filters, it has so far required an internet connection. The required computing power was simply too great. And some of the work needed to be offloaded to remote servers. 
Now, Prisma has managed to implement the neural network tech into its iOS smartphone app, which should make it much faster. 
SEE ALSO: Pr

Prisma quickly rose to prominence with its neural-network-powered art filters for your photos, but the caveat was always that it was a bit slow to process, and only worked if you had a solid internet connection. That’s now changing; Prisma just added offline capabilities to its iOS app, and Android will follow “very soon.” This is important for a few reasons. Perhaps most obviously, photos will process more quickly, as they don’t have to be uploaded to and downloaded fro

Prisma, the app that lets you turn regular photos into beautiful artworks with a single tap, now works offline. 
Since the app uses neural network-based tech to apply its photo filters, it has so far required an internet connection. The required computing power was simply too great. And some of the work needed to be offloaded to remote servers. 
Now, Prisma has managed to implement the neural network tech into its iOS smartphone app, which should make it much faster. 
SEE ALSO: Pr

Prisma, the photo manipulation app that uses neural networks to regenerate users' images in the styles of famous artists and paintings, marks a big upgrade today. The iOS Prisma app is being updated to allow offline processing of images for the first time, taking away much of the frustration around needing an internet connection and waiting for overloaded servers to catch up. The initial update won't include all of Prisma's filters, but it does at least lay the foundation for making the app

Did you really think Kobe Bryant's retirement tour would end with his final game? 
This thing could drag on until the end of time, baby. 
SEE ALSO: On getting older: Kobe and LeBron as the NBA pages turn
The Los Angeles City Council officially declared this Wednesday to be "Kobe Bryant Day" in honor of the Lakers icon four months after he went for 60 points in an unforgettable final performance. 
Wednesday's date is Aug. 24 — also known as 8/24. Eight and 24 are the two numb

That rumor Lyft was trying to sell itself to the highest bidder? All nonsense perpetrated by Uber, says Lyft. Speaking to Business Insider, Lyft president John Zimmer said “Lyft is not seeking a buyer,” and that it was approached — not the other way around: Getting approached and then having it characterized as us wanting to sell the business and failing to do so is a large mischaracterization. If the company is approached, it doesn’t mean the company is looking. That&rs

Angela Nikolau, can't you just find some good lighting and call it a day?
The Moscow-based photographer is making guts churn across the globe with her daredevil selfies. It's hard to look at them, but it's also hard to look away, you know? Ugh.
SEE ALSO: Start cringing. These are the 10 worst selfies of 2015.
If the pit in your stomach feels familiar, it's because this has happened before. In 2014, a group of Instagrammers tested their scary selfie limits with Rooftopping. (One photographer even

Get ready to play Uncharted on your computer: Sony has revealed that PlayStation Now game streaming is coming to PCs. The company says that PS Now will be available “overseas in parts of Europe soon and will come to North America shortly thereafter.” Sony recommends the following specs if you plan to partake in the service on your desktop:
Windows 7 (SP1), 8.1 or 10
3.5 GHz Intel Core i3 or 3.8 GHz AMD A10 or faster
300 MB or more; 2 GB or more of RAM
Sound card; USB port
As part of

Though James Corden's late night segment "Carpool Karaoke" puts the Late Late Show host's vocal skills on display, Corden is rarely (if ever) the center of musical attention. Not so at Coldplay's Sunday night show in Los Angeles.
Chris Martin brought Corden on stage — dressed as a long lost fifth Coldplay member — to pay tribute to Prince with a surprisingly great cover of "Nothing Compares 2 U." It's a delight to behold, and a convincing argument for Corden's very own solo "Carpool

"I looked up because of the laughter, and kept looking because of the girls."
So begins our next MashReads selection, author Emma Cline's debut novel The Girls. 
SEE ALSO: Listen here: 10 great podcasts for book lovers
Inspired by the Charles Manson murders in the '60s, The Girls tells the story of 14-year-old Evie Boyd, a teenager growing up in Northern California in 1969. One day as Evie is preparing to leave for boarding school, she notices a gang of girls, led by the enigmatic Suzanne,