Technology news

Two years ago, Richard Clarkson made the Smart Cloud, a delightfully realistic-looking cloud-shaped lamp / speaker. The design was meant to evoke a thunderstorm, with the cloud flicking accurately and booming out thunder (along with also functioning as a regular lamp and Bluetooth speaker).But the problem with the original Smart Cloud was that it had to be hung from a ceiling cord, which completely broke the illusion of having a magical, musical cloud floating in your living room. But Clark

Tile updated its product line this summer with its slimmest Bluetooth tracker ever, the Tile Slim. It was designed to fit comfortably in wallets. But what about your other gadgets? The original Tile, while bigger than the Slim, came with a punched hole so it could be attached to whatever device we wanted. Now Tile’s revamping that initial product so the tracker’s 25 percent smaller. The Tile Mate weighs 6.1 grams and is 34 x 34x 4.65mm. The original Tile's dimensions were 37 x 37 x 5

Microsoft hasn’t had much to offer in the Windows phone world this year, but it’s just picked up a new device to show off in stores: HP’s Elite x3.
The Elite x3 was released at the end of August and is generally meant for business customers. But it’s one of the more compelling takes on Windows phones, using Windows 10’s Continuum feature mixed with some virtualization options to let owners use the same apps across mobile and desktop modes.
No flagship Lumia to show

Google announced today that it has acquired FameBit, an "influencer marketing platform for branded content." That is a lot of buzzwords packed together, so lets break it down. For a while YouTube creators have been making money not just from advertising revenue generated against their video views, but by partnering with brands that want to connect with its fans. Sometimes this means making videos with a product, flying a drone or drinking a soda and reviewing it. Sometimes its more subtle,

Self-driving cars — or more accurately self-driving pods — took to the road in a city outside of London Tuesday in what organizers are calling the first public test of driverless cars in the UK. To be sure, it was at extremely low speeds in a sparsely trafficked area, but was still celebrated as a milestone by Great Britain, which has lagged behind the US in testing self-driving cars.Fabio De Paola/PA
The autonomous Lutz Pathfinder Pod, developed by the Oxford Robotics Institute and

After a bunch of fires — something you want to avoid in a smartphone — the Galaxy Note 7 is gone. Everyone can agree that your phone catching fire is a bad thing, but at the moment it’s a bit abstract. All we’ve seen are pictures of phones after they caught fire, so it was a bit tricky to imagine just what was going on to these phones.
No longer. The Associated Press has video of Dee Decasa’s phone catching fire in her Honolulu home Sunday morning — this is th

Google just announced that it plans to release a developer preview and public beta of Android 7.1, the first major update to Nougat, sometime later this month. The 7.1 beta will be available first on the Nexus 6P, 5X, and Pixel C tablet. The Pixel and Pixel XL, launching on October 20th, will be the first devices to ship with Android 7.1 out of the box. The Pixel phones also get exclusive built-in features like the Google Assistant, Pixel Camera, Pixel Launcher, and 24/7 customer support, which

For the second time, Boeing has delayed the first crewed flight of its CST-100 Starliner spacecraft — the vehicle the company is building to transport NASA astronauts to and from the ISS, Aviation Week reports. Originally, the aim was for Starliner to carry astronauts for the first time in 2017, but Boeing announced in May that people wouldn’t fly on the vehicle until 2018. The optimistic goal was for crewed flights to begin in early to mid-2018, but now Boeing is saying that the fir

Climate activists say they’ve shut down all five pipelines carrying tar sand oil from Canada to the US. Operating in Minnesota, Montana, North Dakota, and Washington state, the activists manually turned off the pipelines’ safety valves as an act of solidarity with the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe, according to an online statement. That tribe, and others, have been protesting the construction of the Dakota Access Pipeline (DAPL), which was supposed to carry crude oil across four states.

Wonder Woman, already a major feminist icon in pop culture, is being given a new role to inspire women in the real world. The United Nations announced today that the character will be made Honorary UN Ambassador for the Empowerment of Women and Girls.
The superhero, otherwise known as Princess Diana of Themiscyra, is set to be given the title on October 21st at a ceremony at UN headquarters in New York. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon will be in attendance, along with DC Entertainment president Di

Oculus announced a surprising amount of VR news at last week’s Connect conference. Its research division teased a new all-in-one headset, parent company Facebook demonstrated some new social features, and most pertinently for many VR enthusiasts, Oculus cut the minimum requirements for its Rift headset, reducing the cost of entry by hundreds of dollars. (Even if it's still quite an investment.) Then, Oculus chief scientist Michael Abrash came out and gave an extremely detailed talk about w

The Note 7 is prone to bursting into flames, which makes recovering the hundreds of thousands of units that are likely still out there a bit tricky. So Samsung has come up with what's supposed to be a safe solution: a return box that's capable of withstanding extreme heat.
XDA-Developers reports that Samsung has begun sending out the return kits to customers who have gotten in touch about returning their phone.
The box is lined with heat-resistant paper
The return kit includes three boxes and a

For years, Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook have provided data to a company marketing social media surveillance tools to police, according to a newly published investigation by the ACLU of Northern California. Geofeedia used the company’s APIs to create real-time maps of social media activity in protest areas, maps which were subsequently used to identify, and in some cases arrest, protestors shortly after their posts became public. All three services have terminated Geofeedia’s acce

Naked mole rats, the desert-dwelling animals that look like the lovechild of an uncooked sausage and a scrotum, don’t feel certain kinds of pain — and now, scientists may have a better idea why.
The lovechild of an uncooked sausage and a scrotum
In fact, these poop-eating, subterranean creatures have a lot of enviable qualities:they can dodge cancer, live decades longer than other rodents, and go without oxygen for 30 minutes at a time. They might even have evolved a way to avoid the

Samsung and Apple argued in America’s highest court today, capping off years of patent lawsuits with a debate over a tiny piece of the overall case. The arguments the Supreme Court heard today address how much of the profits from a product — in this case, a smartphone — should be awarded to the holder of a design patent when their patent is infringed. (A quick refresher: design patents protect the "ornamental design" of an invention, while the more familiar utility patents prot

The smartwatch industry hasn’t taken off like many had hoped it would. The biggest Android Wear watchmakers have slowed down on new releases, the Apple Watch didn’t sell like many expected, and smartwatches still have a long way to go before they could be considered the industry’s successor to tablets as the "next big thing."
But that hasn’t slowed down Manufacture Modules Technologies (MMT), the partnership between Silicon Valley (Fullpower Technologies) and Switzerland,

Comcast is being fined $2.3 million for billing customers for products that they never ordered. The fine was announced this morning as part of a settlement with the Federal Communications Commission, which says this is "the largest civil penalty" it’s ever issued a cable operator.
In addition to paying the fine, Comcast will also have to make changes to how it sells products, so that — and this is going to seem extraordinarily reasonable — customers only have to pay for things

Google is making it a bit easier to use its Project Fi mobile network like standard cell service with the introduction of group plans. Now, you can add as many people to your Project Fi plan as you’d like at an additional cost of $15 per user. The rate for data remains $10 per GB, and Google will still issue refunds for unused data. As it stands today, Project Fi works on the Nexus 5X, Nexus 6P, and the newly announced Pixel and Pixel XL and the introductory Basics plan costs $20 a mo

Private space companies may soon get the opportunity to add their own habitat modules to the outside of the International Space Station. That’s according to NASA Administrator Charles Bolden, who announced the new initiative today as a way to help expand the number of companies and people that can do work and research in space. That can eventually help companies gain the experience and capability to create private space stations of their own. Continue reading…

Western Digital’s "My Passport" line of portable external hard drives have never been mistaken for fashionable. They cry out, "Forget me in a desk drawer somewhere!" They’re utilitarian, and do frequently store computer files adequately. But where’s the zest? I mean, just look at this sad object:Aren’t you sad now? I’m sad.
Now Western Digital is doing a total about face and releasing an all-new design for its My Passport and My Book hard drive lines. Here’s a

Navdy promised to bring a transparent car navigation display to the public around two years ago. It took preorders for $399, and only this past month did the devices start shipping to buyers. Those units are under non-disclosure agreements, too, so we don’t know how well they work or what they even look like. Now Anker, the hardware company from a former Google employee best known for its backup battery packs, is working on a similar product. Could Anker beat Navdy to a public launch? Call

Editor's note, 10:30AM ET, October 11th, 2016: On September 2nd, 2016, Samsung issued a recall on the Galaxy Note 7 because of a safety concern with the battery. The company halted sales and recalled all 2.5 million devices it manufactured. It then issued replacement devices that were deemed to be safe for use by both Samsung and the US Consumer Product Safety Commission. Unfortunately, it turns out that those devices were no safer than the first run and presented many of the same risks. As a re

 Despite massive structural changes in the American healthcare system, proper care for the nation’s aging baby boomers remains out of reach for many people. Assisted living centers for our parents and grandparents suffering from dementia and Alzheimers can cost upwards of $5,000 per month and personal caregivers signed through agencies can easily cost considerably more.
A new startup… Read More

This is not an ad for Peak Design, though it might read like it. It’s not a paid endorsement, though I can understand how my enthusiasm for the company’s first backpack could be misconstrued as such. See, I like the Peak Design Everyday Backpack — I like it a lot. It’s one of those rare products that makes you smile unexpectedly as you discover yet another great feature over time. I’d go so far as to say that it’s the most intelligently designed carr

The Galaxy Note 7 was supposed to be a phone good enough for the history books, though Samsung probably didn’t intend for it to land in business and marketing tomes as a teachable moment of what not do. The Korean company rushed production to beat the new iPhone, encountered a serious hardware defect that caused batteries to catch fire, and then fumbled its way through an inconsistent recall process. Completing the self-harm, Samsung’s replacement Galaxy Notes started self-combusting

SPONSORED: Presented by Akamai.
When I glance at my phone, there’s always a number that hurts my feelings a little bit. It triggers a mix of shame and trepidation, and I almost immediately want to flip to another page on the phone just so I can avoid it.
It’s not my step counter.
It’s the number of apps I have to update on the app store. I’m up to about 120 now.
I used to be different. I was the kind of person who looked down on those who would be insane enough to leave s

Tile, maker of little Bluetooth-enabled devices that help you find lost stuff, announced a new product today: a small keyring tracker designed to replace the company’s two-year-old flagship product.
At $25, Tile’s new Bluetooth tracker — the Tile Mate — looks a lot like the original Tile, but it’s 25 percent smaller and the details of the device were refined by Fuseproject, a firm created by roving industrial designer Yves Béhar.
The origi

Investigators with the Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) used a subpoena to seize the charred remains of Brian Green’s Samsung Galaxy Note 7, the phone that caught fire on a Southwest Airlines flight on October 5th. The investigatory team then drove the device to Bethesda, Maryland and hand-delivered it to the CPSC lab there for extensive testing.
Green told The Verge that the CPSC confiscated his device with a subpoena on October 6th, the day after the fire, while it was in the ha

Tinder rival Hinge has announced a shift away from the swipe-obsessed mobile dating culture and is relaunching as a paid service for those seeking serious relationships.
Founded out of New York in 2011, Hinge has raised around $20 million in funding to date. So far, Hinge has been like Tinder in many ways — users indicated who they found attractive by swiping. But while Tinder was always more about hooking up with strangers, Hinge used Facebook to help match you with friends of friends thr

Spy, the beloved satirical magazine that lampooned the rich, famous, and powerful from 1986 to 1998, has been revived as a digital pop-up for the remainder of the election. The new Spy will live on the Esquire website, and The Wall Street Journal reports that its small team intends to publish about five original articles per day through the election.
Spy famously referred to Donald Trump as a "short-fingered vulgarian" as far back as 1988, and its relaunch this morning features a fake

Netatmo wants to make sure the air in your home is fit for breating. The New York company is announcing its Healthy Home Coach indoor climate monitor today for $100.
The Healthy Home Coach monitors the quality of your air, and records that data along with humidity, temperature, and noise. Then it offers advice on how to keep your climate comfortable based on the data coming in.
“We spend up to 80 percent of our daily life indoors,” says Fred Potter, founder and CEO of Netatmo, in a s

In conjunction with its Summit conference in Tampa, Florida, today, Microsoft is providing more detail about the release of its Dynamics 365 cloud software for customer relationship management (CRM) and enterprise resource planning (ERP). The combined offering, which will become available on November 1 in more than 40 languages, comes with a new pricing model.
Rather than making companies pay for subscriptions to Dynamics CRM for CRM and and Dynamics AX/GP/NAV for ERP, Microsoft is instead bundl

If you’re an Android user, you’ve probably had a terrible experience with shovelware — the “helpful” apps manufacturers and carriers add to your phone without asking.
Typically, these apps suck up precious storage space. Even worse — like a free U2 album — they’re universally disliked and can’t be deleted. And as far as mobile experiences go, they set the customer off on the wrong foot — creating negative triggers that bite into custome

In the digital age in which we live, there’s no shortage of technologies siphoning off our data in order to provide better customer service. But what happens when we take our complaints, questions, and feedback away from online channels and move them offline using the age-old telephone? Tapping into this medium can be difficult to do, but Invoca has found a way and it’s now looking to kick its brand up a notch, bringing on board long-time Salesforce executive Gregg Johnson on board a

Oncomfort has won a prize for helping cancer patients manage their anxiety through a virtual reality app.
The company won a $50,000 grand prize in the C3 Prize contest sponsored by pharmaceutical firm Astellas Oncology during the European Society of Medical Oncology Annual Congress in Copenhagen, Denmark. Oncomfort’s Diane Jooris of Brussels, Belgium, will share part of the $100,000 in grants awarded to three C3 Prize winners.
Houston, Texas-based Oncomfort created virtual realit