Technology news

Kobi is a modular robot that’s basically a Roomba for snow and leaves. It’ll mulch grass and leaves, throw snow into a dedicated area, and mow the lawn. You have to define its physical boundaries through its app and where to dump the leaves and snow, but after that, the company says Kobi apparently can figure out its way and remember the route it needs to take. It’s equipped with a GPS and sensors to help avoid obstacles, and you can even put snow tires on it! Kobi starts at $3

Kratom, a Southeast Asian plant with opiate-like effects, won’t be banned — at least, for now. The Drug Enforcement Administration announced today that it will postpone its controversial decision to temporarily classify the plant as a Schedule I controlled substance. Instead, the DEA now plans to give the public six weeks to comment on the proposed scheduling before making a final decision.
Kratom won’t be banned, for now
"We still believe that kratom is dangerous, it

Fans of the 2003's The Room will finally have something new to quote at parties. Director Tommy Wiseau and actor Greg Sestero are reteaming for another movie called Best F(r)iends, according to The Hollywood Reporter. The movie is inspired by a real-life road trip Wiseau and Sestero took in 2003. Wiseau stars in the film, but leaves the directing this time around to Gary Fong.
Best F(r)iends is about a mortician (played by Wiseau) who picks up a hitchhiker (Sestero) who has recently be

Microsoft recently ended sales of its Band 2 wearable device, and disbanded the team responsible for the wearable, but that doesn't mean the company wasn't planning a Band 3. A Windows Central forums user has posted images of what appears to be a Microsoft Band 3 prototype device. The poser claims the device would have included waterproofing, blood pressure tracking, and RFID support.
The images posted appear to show a Band with a slightly tweaked clasp design, but with the overall same des

 Following news of its large-scale data breach affecting 500 million account holders, Yahoo today rolled out a change to its Yahoo Account settings screen that will better alert users to unauthorized activity on their accounts. The feature is similar to Google’s in that it tracks the account activity and devices associated with your Yahoo account, but it doesn’t provide as much… Read More

A new treatment for the blood disease sickle cell anemia is possible now that scientists have figured out how to repair the mutation that causes the condition. It doesn’t work all the time, but it does create hope for patients.Researchers took blood from patients from sickle cell anemia. Then, they used a gene-editing technique called CRISPR to snip out the genetic mutation and replace it with healthy DNA, as described in a study published today in Science Translational Medicine. The proce

Halloween is, obviously, the most important holiday of the year and what you wear on that day is your statement to the world about how original, fun, cultured, and resourceful you are. If you mess it up, you have to wait a whole year for another shot at acclaim. I’m not going to tell you what to be for Halloween this year (although here’s one option!) because that’s a highly personal decision you should discuss only with your life partner and / or physician. I’m not tryin

Verizon Wireless is completely dismissing the idea that it will be slowing down future Android updates on Google's Pixel and Pixel XL smartphones. Last week, Google revealed that although it's handling software and security updates for the devices, Verizon must certify them for carrier-sold Pixels before they can be rolled out to customers. That at least raised the possibility that Verizon-sold Pixel phones might not get new Android features as soon as they're available for the Pixels that

When Samsung says it's putting an end to the Galaxy Note 7 for good, it's not making any exceptions; the company has confirmed to Motherboard that there are no plans to repair or refurbish a single recalled device. Every Note 7 that Samsung receives back will be scrapped. “We have a process in place to safely dispose of the phones,” a spokesperson said.
Earlier today, Samsung adjusted its third quarter profit estimates to account for over $2 billion in losses — a

Google and Facebook are working together to lay a nearly 8,000-mile cable between Los Angeles and Hong Kong.
The fiber-optic cable will have a bandwidth of 120 terabits per second, which Google says makes it the highest-capacity route between the US and Asia. It’ll double the current record, which is held by a cable that Google is also a partner on.
The new cable should allow Google and Facebook to offer faster and more reliable service to visitors on the other side of the Pacific. The com

Yesterday, social media surveillance became a very real problem for Facebook and Twitter. An ACLU report revealed a CIA-funded tool called Geofeedia was being used by police to track data from Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram to aid in investigations. Documents show Baltimore police used the tool, called Geofeedia, during protests after the death of Freddie Gray, even feeding Instagram posts through a facial recognition system to find protestors with outstanding warrants.
Facebook and Twitter we

ZTE launched the final stage of its Project CSX contest today, where people, including you, can vote on the device you want to see next. How democratic! The company has some interesting suggestions, like an eye-tracking, self-adhesive phone that can be controlled by eye movement. It sticks to a wall or flat surface so users never have to touch it. There's also a waterproof VR diving mask that you can wear in a pool. You can see ocean life at the bottom of the water! This sounds hazardous to

Do you want to replace all your worldly possessions with a virtual reality headset, specifically one made by Sony for the PlayStation 4 gaming console? October 13th is your lucky day — that’s when the PlayStation VR ships and hits store shelves.
To be clear, there are reasons to hold off on PSVR, whether that’s for a few months or a whole generation of hardware. Sony promised 50 games by the end of the year, but only around 30 of these are out at launch. The Move motion control

A type of virus that only infects bacteria has stolen the DNA of black widow spiders to attack its prey. And just not any DNA, but the genes that code for spider venom. This is the first time we’ve seen a virus take genes from such a complex organism.
The virus, named WO, attacks Wolbachia, a bacteria that lives inside spiders and other insects. The virus’s job isn’t easy: WO has to infect the Wolbachia bacteria, break out of the bacteria, and finally break out of the insect ho

Colleen Ballinger created the character of Miranda Sings eight years ago as a parody of the girls she studied acting and voice with — the ones who took confidence in their own talent to a rude extreme. Miranda is egotistical, aggressively conservative, wildly antagonistic, and constantly off-pitch. She’s obsessed with fame, and one of her signature catchphrases is “haters make me famous.” That’s true in the most literal sense, because the early Miranda videos went v

I’ve been familiar with Siri longer than most people. Way back in 2009, two years before Apple incorporated the intelligent digital assistant into the iPhone, I stood onstage with the inventors of the service while they debuted it at a tech conference I co-produced. At the time, it was just a third-party app on the iPhone App Store. Not long thereafter, Apple bought the company and the assistant reemerged in 2011 with a splashy introduction as a core feature of the iPhone 4S.
In addition t

It’s a Wednesday night in North East London and upstairs at the Vortex Jazz Club the machines are calling the shots. The human spectators are jiggling happily in their seats, and the musicians are undeniably flesh-and-blood, sweating and straining at their instruments. But the music itself is the product of electronic brains — trained to soak up the music of great artists and strain out new melodies.
This is "the first concert consisting almost entirely of music composed by artificia

The idealist in me wants to be able to buy everything from small companies and Kickstarter outfits. It’s extremely rewarding when you can spend your money with a classic family business like Grado or a young startup like Peak Design and help to support good ideas while obtaining a benefit for yourself. But the reality is that most good ideas fail to live up to their conceptual greatness — and that’s where the RiutBag "reverse backpack" lands. Initially funded on Kickstarter and

Shenzen was previously best known for its knockoff iPhones and iPads, but the Chinese manufacturing hub is now a force of innovation in its own right. The latest proof? Apple is opening a new research and development center in the city, the company's second in China following a $45 million hub being built in Beijing.
Apple CEO Tim Cook even made a surprise visit to Shenzen on Tuesday to celebrate the news. According to comments reported by local paper Economic Daily and trans

 Noodle Partners Inc., a new education venture from the founder of The Princeton Review and 2U Inc., John Katzman, has raised $4 million in venture funding to help colleges and universities deliver high-quality certificate and degree programs online. Philadelphia-based Osage Venture Partners led the investment in Noodle Partners and was joined by New Markets Venture Partners, 500 Startups… Read More