Technology news

The energy industry has long resisted efforts to rein in fossil fuel consumption for decades to combat climate change. It is mildly surprising then, that ExxonMobil released a statement earlier this week announcing its support of the Paris climate agreement, which went into effect on November 4th.
The company’s release affirms that climate change poses serious risks, noting that "ExxonMobil supports the work of the Paris signatories, acknowledges the ambitious goals of this agreement,

Adult dating service company Friend Finder Network has reportedly been hacked, with over 412 million accounts, e-mail addresses and passwords from their websites made available on criminal marketplaces. Notably, the database does not include more detailed personal information, but could still be used to confirm whether a person was a user of the service.
Breach notification site LeakedSource first reported the attack, indicating that over 300 million AdultFriendFinder accounts were affected, as

Can you guess what the Anti-Snore Wearable is designed to do? Hm. I wonder...
The Anti-Snore Wearable launched on Kickstarter earlier this week and is a band that wraps around a wearer’s arm. It vibrates whenever its companion iOS / Android app detects snoring in an effort to coax a person into turning over to his or her side. So the band tries to save your bed companion some passive aggressive side jabs. Got it.
The band doesn’t have a microphone inside, but pairs with a user's phon

 In case you missed it, last night Mark Zuckerberg published a response to accusations that “fake news” on Facebook influenced the outcome of the U.S. election, and helped Donald Trump to win.
The CEO claimed that at least 99% of news content on Facebook was “authentic.” Zuckerberg wrote:
“Of all the content on Facebook, more than 99% of what people see is… Read More

GUEST: Successful software development today requires the right people as much as the best code. I like to say that great people, who form great teams, have a shot at creating great software. And great companies are increasingly those that make great software, no matter what sector they’re in.
How, then, do you form a high-functioning, highly-effective modern software development team? What does this team look like? Who are the people you want to recruit? And how should they work together

Bruce Wooden is debuting a new feature for social VR platform, AltSpaceVR. To introduce it, he needs help from a guest. He motions to a set of doors that open, and in walks none other than Bruce Wooden.
The AltSpace developer was showcasing VR Capture, a means of recording performances within the app and then playing them back. The first Wooden was really a recording he had taken earlier, and the second was the real man in the virtual flesh. VR Capture recorded his avatar’s movements and v

GUEST: When it comes to pitches, everyone’s a critic. Just the order that information is presented can be the difference between holding someone’s attention or losing it. Here’s a scientifically-based formula to help you craft a winning business summary.
Business summaries aren’t really summaries
The need for short summaries comes up a lot in startups. Profiles, applications, emails, social media, partners, press… the amount of text you have to work with varies fro

Nintendo’s NES Classic Edition sold out in minutes when it was released on Friday, but you can take a look at what it’s made of thanks to YouTuber JerryRigEverything, who dismantled the console in a short teardown video.
The console is simpler than the original device it replicates. After discovering the screws hidden by the device’s feet, he pulled casing apart to reveal a device that isn’t all that modular: the HDMI and micro USB ports are soldered right to the boa

Nintendo’s NES Classic Edition sold out in minutes when it was released on Friday, but you can take a look at what it’s made of thanks to YouTuber JerryRigEverything, who dismantled the console in a short teardown video.
The console is simpler than the original device it replicates. After discovering the screws hidden by the device’s feet, he pulled casing apart to reveal a device that isn’t all that modular: the HDMI and micro USB ports are soldered right to the boa

Nvidia CEO Jen-Hsun Huang says that Nvidia is in the midst of a transition from being a graphics chip company to an artificial intelligence platform maker. The company still powers the graphics chips in laptops and gaming PCs with virtual reality headsets. But it is also supplying the computing horsepower for deep learning neural networks, self-driving cars, and upcoming devices such as the Nintendo Switch game console.
I caught up with Huang after Nvidia reported blow-out numbers for its third

GUEST: Few investors even on Wall Street are aware that over $220 million has been raised in the past three years through Initial Coin Offerings (ICOs). ICOs are a new form of investment, somewhere between an IPO and a Kickstarter, in which new blockchain ventures sell a digital currency they create to use with their software before the software itself is written.
ICOs are easy money nowadays, and I’ve participated in a few myself; but when it came to my own blockchain startup, I urged tha

This Monday, the early morning night sky will be treated to an extra special supermoon. You may be asking yourself "what’s the point?"; It feels like there’s a new supermoon every other month, and there are other bigger things to worry about right now. Well, here’s the deal: it’s going to be big — the closest supermoon the Earth has seen in the past 69 years.
The Moon’s distance to Earth isn’t a constant because our satellite is in elliptical orbit &mdas

Facebook has been under the spotlight following the results of this week’s presidential election. While Mark Zuckerberg has dismissed claims that his company has unduly influenced the election, others at Facebook are beginning to look closely at their role in the media landscape, according to The New York Times.
Last night, Zuckerberg posted a lengthy status update to his page, outlining his thoughts on his company's role in the election, noting that "99 percent of what people see is authe

Let’s play a quick guessing game. The franchise in question involves an old guy trying his hand at being god, a wondrous theme park that goes awry, and a lot of death and destruction. What pop-culture project am I describing?
If you answered Westworld, you’re correct! If you answered Jurassic Park, you are also correct!Both were originally created by novelist Michael Crichton, who wrote and directed the original movie Westworld in 1973. Jurassic Park was a novel he wrote in 1990. If

Earlier this week, Snap Inc. began selling their new Spectacles from a bright yellow vending machine near the company’s headquarters in Venice Beach, California. Now, the machine has popped up next to the Pfeiffer Big Sur State Park in California.
pic.twitter.com/yFDVYUcZ2H
— Spectacles (@Spectacles) November 13, 2016The machines are the only places where one can buy a pair of the glasses, which feature a build-in camera. The first location proved to be extremely popular, with people

GUEST: If you want to see the future, look to the patent office. Google recently published the full text of a patent for a contact lens that can monitor blood glucose and dispense insulin automatically, while Samsung patented a contact lens with an integrated camera just a few short weeks ago.
The next great wave of tech innovation may come in the form of the one of the most intimate of all wearables: contact lenses. We’re not quite there yet. Smart glasses and Snapchat Spectacles will con

The upcoming Hollywood live-action adaptation of anime classic Ghost in the Shell has attracted quite a bit of controversy for its casting of Scarlett Johansson in the main role — the white American actress plays The Major, a character known as Motoko Kusanagi in the source material. In an on-stage interview at a Tokyo event where the first trailer for the movie made its debut, British director Rupert Sanders addressed the issue of Johansson’s casting.
“To me, you know, I cast

I’ve been biting my nails even since I can remember. I do it automatically, without even realizing it: I’m focused on writing a story, and before I know it, my finger is in my mouth and I’m greedily chewing a nail or a cuticle. I hate that I bite my nails; it makes me feel ashamed, and I’ve tried quitting multiple times. So why do I keep doing it? The answer is more complicated than you’d think.
Scientists, in fact, are still trying to figure out exactly why people

About one week ago, Google started shipping its newest Chromecast device, the Chromecast Ultra, which is capable of streaming 4K and (high-dynamic range) HDR video on 4K displays. It costs $69, which comes out to $35 more than the Chromecast that Google released last year, and the original model that Google started selling in 2013.
I’ve had some time to experiment with the new gadget in the past few days, on a 4K TV and a 1080p TV, and I have some initial impressions. I’m sharing the

The first full trailer for Ghost in the Shell, the live-action adaptation of the classic manga and anime series, is here. The movie sees Scarlett Johansson play The Major, a soldier with a human mind inside an android body, alongside Japanese legend “Beat” Takeshi Kitano as Chief Daisuke Aramaki.
If you were expecting a more Western-flavored movie following the accusations of whitewashing that surrounded Johansson’s casting, this trailer may surprise you. From the neon kanji an

For the last year, the tech industry has been fretting about a bubble.
Investors on all sides argued over whether valuations were too high or whether the tech sector as a whole was still undervalued.
Yet while Silicon Valley was obsessing over the startup bubble, it collectively failed to realize it was living in a completely different kind of bubble: a political bubble.
As the reality struck late Tuesday night that Donald Trump would be the next US president, tech leaders fo

Remember all the jokes people made about the lack of a physical escape key on the new MacBook Pro models with a Touch Bar at the top of the keyboard? My favorite was a picture of a physical escape key that used a wired connection to connect to the MacBook Pro.
Well, one developer thought up a different workaround that’s both funny and clever. You can use the display on a connected iPhone or iPad any time you need to hit escape while typing on the new MacBook Pro with Touch Bar.
And you can

OPINION: For the past month, I have been using the Google Pixel as my main phone. And day after day, I continue to love it. It is a wonderful phone. The Pixel XL has a better display and longer battery life, but the smaller version feels more comfortable in my hand, and less of it sticks out of the back pocket of my jeans. (The little things do matter.)
Now I’d like to see Google make a tablet that’s as well crafted and smart as the Pixel phones. I’m talking about something tha

GUEST: Technology is a fancy word to making the future a better — well, at least a less complex place to live.
The internet, then web applications, then apps, now bots. Apps are old news now, and bots and AI seem to be the next big thing. The dream of the independent developer building a business in the app store is over. Bots are taking over, and why won’t they? Simplicity? Check. Cost efficiency? Check. Time efficiency? Double check. They are the latest technology, and on

Logitech G Pro
Pricing: $70
Availability: Out nowLogitech’s never-ceasing battle to win over competitive gamers has brought us to the G Pro gaming mouse, and everyone at all skill levels should benefit from this device.
The Logitech G Pro builds a high-quality optical sensor, a texturized scroll wheel, and a responsive buttons into a mouse that looks a lot like the standard mice I’ve used for years. The benefits of that are that it is instantly familiar, but it can actuall

GUEST: Dashbot recently surpassed 140 million messages processed. We took a look back at a previous report on common messages sent in to bots to see how messaging has changed over the past five months. The following metrics are based on Facebook bots on our platform.
1. “Hi and hello”
Looking at the most common messages sent in to bots, we can see “hi” and “hello” are still at the top. It makes sense  —  bots are conversational interfaces and

It seems that all of Silicon Valley is designing artificial intelligence for driverless cars. But before we hand over our driving to computers, Charlie Miller, a well-known computer security researcher, would like car companies to pay attention to security.
Miller, who is a security engineer at Uber’s advanced technology center, spent a few years looking into the security of automobiles. And what he found didn’t impress him. He and his friend Chris Valasek hacked a Jee

GUEST: Earlier this year, a disturbing piece of news on the other side of the world became a prime example of the growing menace of serious cyber attacks. South Korea’s spy agency informed government lawmakers that the number of North Korean cyber attacks had doubled in only one month. That was February – versus January.
North Korea unsuccessfully tried to hack into South Korea’s railway control system and into the computer networks of financial institutions. South Korea’