Technology news

Amazon’s ambitions for its Alexa voice assistant may extend from the living room to the PC. According to CNET, the company has held talks with Lenovo to integrate thesoftware into Windows computers, presumably where it would either work with or replace Microsoft’s Cortana. The details of these discussions are sparse, and the report states that any potential partnership is still in its earliest stages. However, extending Alexa from the Echo speaker and other third-party devices to a m

HDMI Licensing, the company that defines hardware rules for HDMI cables, announced today that it's releasing an HDMI Alt Mode for USB-C products. The specification allows for USB-C-to-HDMI cables to be made with no need for extra dongles or converters, and allow compatible devices to output video directly from a USB-C device to an HDMI display. This means that smartphones, tablets, laptops, cameras, and any other devices with a USB-C port can be built to directly output video to any HD

Cook’s Science, a new website from America’s Test Kitchen, launched at the end of July, and has rapidly become excellent lunch-break material. Like all brands under the America’s Test Kitchen umbrella, this new website is grounded in exploring the science of good food and using the scientific method to develop recipes. Unlike other products or brands out of America’s Test Kitchen, everything on the Cook’s Science website is free.
The publication mixes reported stori

Withings' wearables have always appealed to different sensibilities than other smartwatches and activity trackers. Instead of having a digital display or no display at all, they use analog clock faces, with one hand showing the time and another showing your progress on a daily activity goal. The company's latest is the Steel HR, unveiled at IFA today, and it fits this formula beautifully: it feels and looks (pretty much) like a regular watch.
This isn't something to be sniffed at. While pla

Withings' wearables have always appealed to different sensibilities than other smartwatches and activity trackers. Instead of having a digital display or no display at all, they use analog clock faces, with one hand showing the time and another showing your progress on a daily activity goal. The company's latest is the Steel HR, unveiled at IFA today, and it fits this formula beautifully: it feels and looks (pretty much) like a regular watch.
This isn't something to be sniffed at. While pla

A change in YouTube’s content moderation system has left many video creators uncertain of their place on the platform. Over the past day, users have been posting notices from Google, saying that certain videos were being barred from making money via YouTube’s ad service. More troublingly, the videos were often flagged for reasons that seemed unfair, unclear, or outright censorious. But statements from YouTube suggest that the real problem isn’t a new policy — it’s a

Verizon is the latest carrier hopping back on board with unlimited data in a strange way. Its twist is called Safety Mode, and it kicks in after a subscriber’s data bucket has run out by continuing to offer them internet access, but only at very slow speeds limited to 128kbps.
Safety Mode was announced back in July, but as of September 6th, Verizon is making it a core part of every plan. It’s now included in all Verizon data plans, whereas at launch, Safety Mode was a $5 per month ad

Uber sees an opportunity in the looming transit disruption in New York City, nicknamed the L Train Apocalypse. But the ride-hailing giant will have to navigate a political minefield if it hopes to get its way.Starting in 2019, the L train between Manhattan and Brooklyn will be completely shut down for 18 months in order to repair the extensive damage wrought by Hurricane Sandy in 2012. An estimated 225,000 people ride the L train every day, which is more people than the daily ridership of the Ba

After news broke recently that Apple would have to pay Ireland some €13 billion ($14.5 billion USD) in back taxes, Apple’s CEO today fired back that the ruling was “total political crap.” “No one did anything wrong here,” Cook said. “Ireland is being picked on, and this is unacceptable.” The European Commission ruled Tuesday that Ireland gave Apple illegal tax benefits by not collecting the €13 billion owed over a 10-year period. The ruli

Instagram finally introduced one of its most requested features on iOS just yesterday – the ability to zoom into a photo – and said that the feature would arrive on Android “in the coming weeks.” However, as noted by Android Police, it seems some users are already starting to see the functionality show up. User Tim Bremer recorded the functionality on his Google+ account. A few commenters under Bremer’s post can also access the feature. This appears to be a server

Apple is doing some housecleaning, as it turns out not every single one of the 2 million+ apps in the App Store are actually used or downloaded. Shocking. The company released a FAQ and sent out an email to developers explaining that it will begin to purge the app store of “apps that no longer function as intended, don’t follow current review guidelines, or are outdated.” Apps that crash on launch will be “removed immediately.” Apple has liked to flaunt i

Cybersecurity researchers have always had an unspoken truce with companies. When hackers find a problem, they typically report it to the company and give them a chance to fix it before going public with it. This often leads to ‘bounties’ the company pays out for spotting the vulnerability, although not always. A cybersecurity firm called MedSec just found a new way to monetize its research — Wall Street. MedSec is foregoing the traditional approach by selling information

A cleansing of sorts is coming to the App Store. Today Apple sent out an email to developers notifying them of a new evaluation process meant to find and remove "problematic" apps that haven't been updated for compatibility with recent versions of iOS and macOS. Apple says it's seeking out apps "that no longer function as intended" and those that fail to meet current review guidelines. The Apple developer website has also been updated with an explainer on the new process.
If problems are fo

Supergirl and Arrow co-creator Greg Berlanti is reportedly developing a series following Black Lightning, one of DC Comics’ first major black superheroes. According to Deadline, Berlanti is working with The Game creator Mara Brock Akil and her husband to get the drama off the ground, and the trio are currently shopping the project to multiple networks.
Black Lightning has the chance to be DC’s highest profile black superhero series to date. Created in 1977 by writer Tony Isabella and

ZTE is rolling out a smaller version of its increasingly popular Axon 7. Like many downsized flagships, the Mini builds off of its larger sibling with similar design and slightly reduced specs, for a cheaper price tag. It will retail for 299 Euros, which is about $330 in the US. The main difference is obviously the reduced size, although calling it ‘mini’ is a bit of a stretch, given its 5.2 inch 1080p AMOLED display (compared to the 5.5-inch, QHD panel on the larger model). St

What should you wear to keep cool on a hot day? One word: plastics.A form of polyethylene — the common plastic that makes up ClingWrap — is a promising candidate for a textile that prevents us from overheating, researchers say. Hopefully, it won’t look like those PVC bodysuits that pop up every Halloween.Many researchers are trying to create cooling fabrics, from cloth inspired by squid skin to electroactive textiles. But the team led by Yi Cui, a materials scientist at Stanfor

‘Brave‘ a new browser with a unique take on the ad-blocking problem launched in public beta today. Co-Founded by former Mozilla CEO, Brendan Eich, the browser encourages users to reward their favorite sites by making small deposits and anonymously sending Bitcoin-based tips to publishers, a solution that could provide middle ground on both sides of the ad-blocking debate. The debate hinges on two key points — revenue and user experience. Publishers rely on ad im

Christopher Guest, the king of mockumentaries, is bringing his latest to Netflix.
Mascots stars Guest, Jane Lynch (Glee, The 40-Year-Old Virgin), Parker Posey (Dazed and Confused, Café Society), Chris O’Dowd (Bridesmaids, Calvary), Fred Willard (Anchorman, Everybody Loves Raymond), Ed Begley Jr. (Arrest Development, Ghostbusters), and Zach Woods (Silicon Valley, Ghostbusters), among others. It tells the fictional life stories of sports mascots competing for a mascot-ing champio

Wacom is refreshing its lineup of Bamboo styluses and will release the Bamboo Omni, a fine-point stylus designed for Android and iOS devices, in November. The Bamboo Solo and Duo have both been redesigned, and should offer improved interaction with touchscreen devices. The Duo will also come with a replaceable ballpoint pen at the opposite end of the stylus.Wacom Bamboo Duo.
Wacom says the Bamboo Omni will instantly work on Android and iOS devices without Bluetooth — all it needs is a simp

Video has surfaced of the Falcon 9 rocket explosion that happened this morning at SpaceX's launch facility in Cape Canaveral. US Launch Report, a nonprofit video production company that brings military veterans to see space launches, published the video to its YouTube channel this afternoon.
Not long before the video was published, SpaceX CEO Elon Musk said on Twitter that the explosion originated around the oxygen tank of the rocket's upper stage. The cause is still unknown.
SpaceX was fueling

Huawei made a few big announcements at IFA today, including a new phone series. That's cool and all, but what we're really excited about are more fashionable choices for the company's P9 flagship phone. The phone's now being released in two more colors: a cranberry red and a metallic-esque blue. This isn’t a post to rehash the specs, you can check them out in our review and get lots of Vlad-sass with it, although I will remind you that the phone was initially released in gold, wh

We’re less than one week out from Apple’s annual iPhone announcement, but we’re already seeing details leak out about the other big product on the agenda. The Apple Watch 2, which the company is expected to detail next Wednesday, is said to pack in more battery life and possibly contain a GPS chip. Now, a component leak from electronics shop Byte, posted to YouTube today, seems to suggest these rumors might be true.
The video shows a torn down Apple Watch with a larger 1.35Wh b

Hours after the explosion of a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket on its launchpad at Cape Canaveral, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg has released a statement on the loss of an onboard satellite contracted by Internet.org. The satellite, which Facebook launched in partnership with Eutelsat, would have brought wireless connectivity to large portions of sub-Saharan Africa, in partnership with local service providers.
Zuckerberg's statement emphasizes other technologies developed by Internet.org, including&n

I know it’s true of every modern phone, but it’s especially true of Sony’s new pair of Xperia handsets: the camera will be the most important factor in deciding the fortunes of the Xperia XZ and Xperia X Compact. Introduced at IFA 2016 in Berlin today, Sony’s Xperia XZ triples down on camera technology with a new laser autofocus, RGBC-IR white balance sensor, and its traditionally strong 23-megapixel imaging sensor. The Japanese company’s new flagship even has a ded

The Romanian hacker Guccifer, whose real name is Marcel Lehel Lazar, was sentenced to 52 months in prison today after pleading guilty to hacking-related charges.
Lazar rose to fame in 2013 after hacking communications from the Bush political family, leaking paintings by George W. Bush and correspondence between family members. He is also believed to have hacked into accounts from other prominent politicians, including former Secretary of State Colin Powell.
In all, Lazar admitted to hacking into

On Friday, the Los Angeles-adjacent town of Inglewood, California will be overrun with thousands of men and women with split-second sharpshooting expertise. They aren’t soldiers, cops, or bounty hunters — they’re fans of Call of Duty. The second “non-annual” fan conference, Call of Duty XP, will take place at the former home the Los Angeles Lakers, the Forum, throughout the weekend. And while it’s probably too late to book a flight and nab a pass, there are a

GoPro is going to show off its Karma drone for the first time on September 19th, according to a short teaser video posted to the company’s Twitter account. The company has been very tight-lipped about Karma, having only released a few short sample clips that were shot using the drone.
We first learned that GoPro was making a quadcopter in May of 2015 at Code Conference, where CEO Nick Woodman called it “the ultimate GoPro accessory.” Back then, the company promised that the pro

Sony introduced its 4K movie streaming service, Ultra, at CES this year in coordination with its release of its 4K HDR TVs. Now the company is teaming up with Intel to bring its streaming service to any PC that has an Intel 7th Gen Core processor, which Intel introduced at IFA this week. Ultra will be available in January.
Called Kaby Lake, Intel focused on making these new chips 4K streaming friendly, so they can handle multiple 4K streams, play 360-degree content, and run VR and AR application

There’s literally no reason in 2016 to own a dedicated MP3 player. Why would you carry around a separate device for listening to music, when you’ve got a smartphone in your back pocket? Hell, why would you even bother to manage a library of music when Spotify is a thing? Sony, it seems, hasn’t gotten the message. It’s just launched a new Walkman model, innocuously called the Premium Walkman with High-Resolution Audio. But not just any Walkman – this is the most hid

The summer of 2016 will not be remembered fondly.
From the first of May to the final days of August, news anchors struggled to keep their heads above water as the world flooded with problems: international absurdity and domestic tragedy, a nauseating presidential election and a ceaseless sprinkling of celebrity deaths. The only thing hotter than the suffocating heat wave was the scored earth takes of righteous pundits. Within a day, social media would cycle through phases of a little brother on

This morning, a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket exploded on its launch pad, completely destroying the rocket and its payload two days before the scheduled launch. The cause of the explosion is still unknown, but anyone counting on this weekend’s launch to deliver equipment into orbit is now left scrambling for a replacement.
That list of customers includes Facebook, which had contracted SpaceX to deliver the first Internet.org satellite into orbit. In partnership with the satellite firm Eutelsat, t

I don’t know exactly who it was, but around six months ago I was at a party when someone told me he recently made a positive lifestyle change. He said it might seem insignificant at first, but was extremely happy he did it. It was saving him from a lot of stress, and was one of the easiest things to do. When I asked him what kind of magical thing he was talking about, he simply told me: ‘I turned off the battery percentage on my phone’ What? I told him I was underwhelmed,

The HTC One A9 was one of my favorite smartphones to hit the shelves last year, and it would appear that many other people share my sentiment as the firm has today announced its successor, the One A9s. Fans of the One A9 will be glad to hear that aside from the omission of its logo on the front of the device and a reduction in the length of the earpiece, HTC has barely made any changes to the design of the One A9s. However, things start to take a turn for the worst when you look under the hood.

I find it disconcerting to see my own sloppy handwriting turned into a pristine digital object, but unfortunately, it's an unavoidable experience while testing out Montblanc's new Augmented Paper. This €650 notepad-and-pen announced at IFA converts every scribble into a digital facsimile stored on your smartphone. It even turns your jottings into text notes, using the same handwriting-recognition technology found in Samsung's smartphones. But while it looks like a seamless experience i

On this day in 1979, a new book by Michael Ende hit bookstores in Germany: Die unendliche Geschichte. The novel was translated into English in 1983 under the title The Neverending Story, and has since become a fantasy classic.
Google’s doodle honors the book’s original publication with a series of illustrations inspired by the novel. The images, which are illustrated by Sophie Diao, uses parallax scrolling for the first time. The background of the image moves slower than the foregrou

It has been five years since Tim Cook took the reins as Apple's CEO after Steve Jobs stepped down, and we're about see a new line of products launch at next week's Apple event. So this week on Ctrl-Walt-Delete, Walt and Nilay review the past five years and discuss what has (or hasn't) changed at Apple, including the products, sales, and the ever-expanding market.We love your feedback on the topics of the show and suggestions on how to make our show better and more fun — you can tweet at Wa

Facebook is adding an ‘instant video’ feature to Messenger, which allows you to view and share a video feeds with your friends while you chat. But wait, Facebook already has video chat, right? The difference with Instant Video is that you can actually send text messages as you video call; it’s meant for shorter bursts of conversations rather than full-fledged video calls. As Facebook puts it: Sometimes you just want to ask a friend’s opinion on a pair of shoes you w

The latest trailer for the upcoming FX dramedy Atlanta is a four-minute introduction to the show’s setting and aesthetic. What it lacks in dialogue it makes up for in gorgeous split-screen shots of Atlanta’s food, streets, people, and 24-hour diners.
Community's Donald Glover created the show and wrote many of its episodes. He'll also star in it as a young music manager trying to get his cousin’s rap career off the ground. While the series isn’t explicitly autobiogra

A good rule of thumb in software these days is that any social product without a video feature is going to get one eventually. Another good rule of thumb is that any feature developed by Snapchat is coming soon to a Facebook product near you. Enter "instant video," a twist on Snapchat's video calling feature that lets you share a live stream from inside a traditional text chat.
Facebook Messenger has had a FaceTime-like video chat option since May 2015. But the company wants to encourage ev

Super Mario Maker isn't the only Wii U game making the jump to the Nintendo 3DS: the adorable platformer Yoshi's Wooly World is also going portable. Nintendo made the announcement today, and the portable version will feature all of the same levels as its console counterpart, but with a few additions. The 3DS game will be getting a new slate of levels centered around Poochy, the adorable wooly dog. Even better, you'll be able to buy a Poochy amiibo made out of yarn, the perfect com

Pikmin is coming to 3DS, though not as you’d expect. The genre-bending console series look to be a more traditional side-scrolling adventure, judging from the limited footage shown during today’s Nintendo Direct stream. As the familiar hero Captain Olimar, the player will press through two-dimensional levels, solving environmental puzzles and attacking enemies with a band of tiny pikmin creatures.
The game, tentatively titled Pikmin, is scheduled for a vague 2017 release. It is one o

Baidu announced Thursday that it has received an autonomous vehicle testing permit from California’s Department of Motor Vehicles, bringing the Chinese search giant one step closer to testing its self-driving cars on Google’s home turf.Earlier this year, Baidu said it would be creating a team of up to 100 engineers, based in Silicon Valley, to work on autonomous vehicles. Now the company says this team is up and running, and the new permit from California will allow it to begin testi

Chip maker Qualcomm has revealed a reference platform for a standalone virtual reality headset, which it’s calling the Snapdragon VR820. The VR820 was created in partnership with Chinese electronics company Goertek, built on Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 820 mobile processor and software development kit. Qualcomm says the headset can be quickly adapted into a product by other companies, despite promising features that remain cutting-edge for virtual reality — like a self-contained form