Technology news

BMW announced on Friday that it was planning on releasing an all-electric version of its crossover X3 as well as an electric Mini. The move is a significant expansion of BMW's electric vehicle portfolio.
The company has a history when it comes to electric vehicles. It launched the i3 electric car in 2013, while the company tested out the Mini E in 2009, deploying a fleet of 500 cars across the world. In recent years, it has released the BMW i8, as well as the plug in versions of the X5

Jonathan Nolan's new TV series Westworld is finally premiering on HBO tonight, and the network has some big plans for the show. But before diving in, it's worth remembering that it is based on the 1973 film from Michael Crichton (yes, the same guy who wrote Jurassic Park). With that in mind, we took a look back to see what inspired Nolan and his team in the first place.
How did the original Westworld age? Not terribly well.
The film opens with a spokesman from the Delos Corporation interviewing

GUEST: There’s a Silicon Valley trend that’s been bothering me lately. Open Twitter and you’ll see hundreds of tech bios that read a variation of:
Engineer at [company]. ex-@Apple, ex-@Google, @MIT
As a marketer, I understand the appeal. Association is a powerful tool that adds credibility and authority. But there are problems and dangers with this sort of self-identification.
For one, it can be taken the wrong way.
A while back, the Harvard Crimson ran an article about the dif

HP split itself in two this year to try to be more nimble. And it is also celebrating 50 years of HP Labs, the Palo Alto, Calif.-based research and development organization that gave us inventions like the scientific programmable calculator and the inkjet printer.
During a recent event celebrating the anniversary, Shane Wall, chief technology officer at HP and director of HP Labs, talked about the trends that the company is expecting in the next three decades, and the research priorities that ma

The Patriots are getting pummeled today in their game against the Buffalo Bills, and head coach Bill Belichick ended up taking his frustration out on his Microsoft Surface.
After seeing something he didn’t like on the screen, he turned and threw the tablet onto a trunk. It bounced and fell — though there’s no way to know if the bulky, blue cases that cover every Surface on the field protected it.
Belichick recently spoke about the tablets at a pre-game conference, noting that w

Tesla set new quarterly records for vehicle production and deliveries in Q3, according to data released today by the company. The company delivered around 24,500 vehicles, an increase of 70 percent from last quarter when the company fell short of its own delivery projections.
The deliveries this quarter were made up of 15,800 Model S sedans and 8,700 Model X SUVs, with vehicle production rising to 25,185. That’s up 37 percent from Q2’s production of 18,345.
Back in August, Tesla crea

Telsa announced that it has accelerated delivery of its electric vehicles in the third quarter. In a press release, the company revealed that in the past three months, it delivered 24,500 vehicles, of which 15,800 were Model S and 8,700 were Model X. This is a 70 percent increase from last quarter’s delivery of 14,402 and a 111 percent increase from Q3 2015.
“Our Q3 delivery count should be viewed as slightly conservative, as we only count a car as delivered if it is transferred to t

GUEST: There are an awful lot of people with empty calendars. How do I know? My inbox tells me. Many of them are filling that time by sending me messages like these:
“I am going to be in town next week and would love to meet.”
“I am always looking to network and learn more about people and the companies they own or work for.”
“Can we partner?”
These are all lines from emails or LinkedIn messages that I have received in the last week. And guess who sent them &m

Last night’s Saturday Night Live went for the lowest of the low hanging fruit last night: the first presidential debate between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump. The show introduced Alec Baldwin as Trump for its cold open sketch, with Kate McKinnon reprising her role as Clinton.
Last week’s presidential debate was ready for satirical treatment, and SNL hit all of the high points: Donald Trump’s sniffing and various denials, as well as Clinton’s attempts to appear relatabl

This weekend at the Paris Motor Show, Volkswagen unveiled its new all-electric, fully autonomous concept car, the I.D. (The Verge’s man in Paris, Amar Toor, got an early look last week.) The car will become the first Volkswagen built off the carmaker’s custom-built Modularer Elektrifizierungsbaukasten, aka Modular Electric Drive kit. It is due to go on sale in 2020, with a range of up to 373 miles — or about 158 miles further than Tesla says its soon-to-be-release Model 3 can t

After years of study, the US Fish and Wildlife Service have placed seven species of Hawaiian yellow-faced bees on the endangered species list, the first time any bee have received such classification.The service worked in conjunction with the Xerces Society, which advocates for invertebrate species, as well as local Hawaiian officials, to study the status of the bees. On its website, the Xerces Society noted seven species of the insect have been listed as endangered:Hylaeus anthracinus, Hylaeus

Until recently, Chris Urmson, was the head of the driverless car project at Alphabet’s X. He famously said his goal was to ensure that his young son never needed a driver’s license, and as a father who had plenty of close calls in a car during my dumb teenage years, I completely agree.
Urmson’s son was 11 when he said that, allowing a five year window for the technology to reach maturity. My own boys have more than a decade before they are old enough to apply for a driver&rsquo

Six months ago, Formula E — the all-electric racing series that was started in 2014 — announced that it was partnering with a company called Virtually Live in order to offer live broadcasts of its races in virtual reality. There was a twist, though: the VR races would be created using computer graphics, offering a sort of interactive video game-style experience where you could be on the track or even watch from right next to the cars. Unfortunately, there was also a second twist: tho

This year I decided to set out on a journey of self-improvement. I took a playwriting class, bought a cookbook, started typing everything I ate into an app, signed up for a corporate gym membership, took my first selfies, made myself go to bed before 10 PM every night, bought seven nonfiction books, and called my grandmother on her birthday.
What do I have to show for it? Basically nothing. Except for my dream journal. Bless my dream journal. Oh sweet dream journal, keeper of secrets, prompter o

Researchers dodge bears, fend off venomous insects, endure dangerous weather and even more dangerous people — all in the name of science. This week, they took to Twitter to talk about their close calls in remote locations, and the hashtag #FieldWorkScares was born.
"Someone mentioned that the stress of fieldwork made every little thing scary which I agreed with so I created the #FieldworkScares as a way of showcasing this," ecologist Scott Davidson, told The Verge via direct message.

Ohhhhhhhhhh....... no?
Margot Robbie upended the "sexy librarian" archetype on Saturday Night Live this week with a performance that would have been more at home in the so-very-dark Suicide Squad. Complete with acid saliva and straight-up murder.
The whole thing is tied together by Yello's "Oh Yeah," which everyone on the planet knows because of John Hughes and Ferris Bueller's Day Off.Let The Rock inspire you to vote with a silly, slightly NSFW song
'Voyager' animated short warns against a tec

A long time ago, when the galaxy far, far away barely even existed in the mind of its creator, there was Westworld. 
That 1973 movie, the directorial debut of novelist Michael Crichton, was built on what is now a shopworn premise: In the near future, rich folks visit a high-tech theme park, assured that nothing can go wrong, but something goes very wrong. (Crichton himself was to revisit the exact same premise two decades later, much more successfully, with Jurassic Park.) 
SEE ALSO: '

 Let’s start with a bit of background. How did you get into angel investing? I was one of the early folks at eBay and by 1999 it was completely overrun by consultants from McKinsey, Bain and BCG. It went from being a cool fun startup to an MBA factory. Angel investing was an outlet for me to hang out with people I liked– startup founders doing crazy stuff! Where did you get the money… Read More

As an acid attack survivor, Monica Singh once found it incredibly difficult to look in the mirror. Her scarred skin brought her back to the day men poured a bucket of acid on her in Lucknow, India — a violent retaliation for her rejection of a marriage proposal.
More than half of Singh's body was burned instantly, altering her appearance forever. But the activist says using a mirror has helped her reclaim love for her reflection, and for herself. 
SEE ALSO: 8 instances of everyday Ind

The beach at Portobello.Image: Library of CongressThese postcards of Scotland at the end of the 19th century were produced by the Detroit Publishing Company using the Photochrom process, a technique for applying vibrant and surprisingly realistic color to black and white images.The process, invented in the 1880s by an employee of a Swiss printing company, involves coating lithographic limestone tablets with a light sensitive emulsion and exposing them to light under a photo negative.For each tin

Every October in Mongolia, among the high-altitude crags of the Altai Mountains, the ancient nomadic tradition of falconry comes to life. The area is home to the native burkitshi, who have trained eagles to aid in their hunting expeditions. Now you can join in.
SEE ALSO: Intense bald eagle attack caught on nest camera
Jalsa Urubshurow, founder of Nomadic Expeditions and the Golden Eagle Festival, which runs from Sept. 27 to Oct. 5, offers seven-day guided immersions with a local family. Stay in

Have you ever opened your cell phone bill and thought, “Wow, that was cheap?” Yeah, didn’t think so.
But take heart: It’s possible to lower your charges before your next billing cycle.
SEE ALSO: Google sends invite for likely Pixel smartphone launch on Oct. 4
Simple tweaks, such as updating your service address and changing or removing your insurance package can make small dents in your bill — and those savings add up over time. Changing your plan or even adding a l

HONOLULU — Federal authorities on Friday added seven yellow-faced bee species, Hawaii's only native bees, for protection under the Endangered Species Act, a first for any bees in the United States.
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service announced the listing after years of study by the conservation group Xerces Society, state government officials and independent researchers. The Xerces Society says its goal is to protect nature's pollinators and invertebrates, which play a vital role in the he

ESL One New York brought eight Counter-Strike: Global Offensive teams and thousands of fans to the Barclays Center in Brooklyn Saturday, and the first day of competition was intense.
SEE ALSO: The next 'CS:GO' Major is being hosted by ELeague in Atlanta
SK Gaming, Na'Vi, Virtus.pro, G2 Esports, Team Liquid, Fnatic, OpTic Gaming and Astralis battled for spots in the semifinals Sunday, and the stakes were high even from the first match. In the end, Na'Vi, SK Gaming, Team Liquid and Virtus.pro move

Judging from the opening minutes of Saturday Night Live's season debut, the question on everyone at Studio 8H's mind was: How on earth do you heighten this already unbelievable general election?
Bring in Alec Baldwin, to start. 
SEE ALSO: Trump's possible 18-year tax break has burned the internet down
As expected, SNL kicked off its 42nd season Saturday with a parody of the first debate between Donald Trump (Baldwin, marking his first time in the role) and Hillary Clinton (newly minted Emm

Donald Trump's difficult week, full of debate misses and softcore pornography, hit a crescendo Saturday night when The New York Times revealed the Republican nominee may not have paid taxes for nearly two decades.
After political rivals and allies have called for months for Trump to release his tax returns, three pages of his 1995 tax return were anonymously sent to Times reporter Susanne Craig (care of Trump Tower, apparently). 
The pages reportedly indicate the real estate mogul claimed a

Robin Williams' widow Susan Schneider Williams has shone a light on her husband's mental and physical struggles during the last year of his life in a powerful personal essay.
Titled "The terrorist inside my husband's brain" and published in the scientific journal Neurology, Schneider details how Williams failed to be diagnosed with the "little-known but deadly" Lewy body disease (LBD) before he died by suicide in 2014. LBD is a form of dementia that most frequently affects the elderly.
"My husba

Like it or loathe it, Playboy magazine has played an iconic role in American pop-culture history. Still, few are likely to consider it "presidential."
News broke Friday that Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump once appeared in a soft-core porn film called Centerfolds, which was produced by Playboy and released in 2000. 
Surprisingly, or perhaps unsurprisingly when it comes to Trump, his history with the magazine goes much deeper. 
SEE ALSO: Insult after insult: All of Trump's

Volkswagen's emissions scandal is costing it another $1.2 billion. 
The car manufacturer agreed Friday to pay US dealers up to $1.2 billion to compensate them for losses that resulted from the scandal, the Associated Press reported. 
Volkswagen cheated emissions regulations on 11 million of its diesel-powered models worldwide. News of the cheated standards broke last September, and since then the manufacturer has faced angry consumers, regulators and, yes, dealers. 
SEE ALSO: The