Technology news

Scientists are holding a Twitter argument right now about which animals sport the best spots on their fur or skin. Is it the cheetah, Ranitomeya frogs, or orange spotted filefish? Nominations — alongside cute animal pictures — are being tweeted out under the hashtag #BestSpots.
The debate over “most beautiful spotted animal” seemed to have started when Anne Hilborn, a PhD student at Virginia Tech who studies cheetah hunting behavior, posted a photo of a cheetah earlier to

As Airbnb looks to expand its business model to include travel consultation and flight booking, the home-sharing platform continues to tussle with regulators over its primary business: short-term rentals. Dozens of hosts gathered in New York City today to voice their concerns at a hearing conducted by the Mayor’s Office of Special Enforcement. The hearing was held to allow public comments on the proposed enforcement of a new state law which prohibits the listing of unoccupied apartments fo

South Carolina representative Bill Chumley has proposed a bill that would make it slightly more difficult for people in his state to watch porn. The bill would require manufacturers to install “digital blocking capabilities” on their computers that would ban access to internet porn, The Charlotte Observer reports.
It doesn’t make much sense
But Chumley’s plans don’t end there. The bill also suggests a loophole for its own requirements: manufacturers could choose to

Video game movies are sometimes mocked for forcing dramatic story arcs onto things that are essentially non-narrative, like the endless shooting gallery of Doom, or the physics puzzles of Angry Birds. But when filmmakers take on projects like Assassin’s Creed, based on the Ubisoft action-game franchise of the same name, they face a different problem: what’s the point? Assassin’s Creed, a game franchise that launched in 2007, is an intensely cinematic series about the generation

If you received a Korn-themed ornament (otherwise known as a “Kornament”) as a holiday gift from the music streaming service Spotify this year, I have two questions for you:Why didn’t you send me an email as I so politely requested via my public tweets several days ago?What did you have to do?Spotify sent ornaments “inspired by” the artwork for Korn’s recent album The Serenity of Suffering to an undisclosed number of people. Undisclosed by choice — I ask

It was only about a month ago that we discovered the Alexa-enabled Big Mouth Billy Bass, and now a couple of enterprising college students have created a muppet-esque talking coffee pot. To get their device working, the two students, David Frank and Carter Hurd, ran Alexa on a Raspberry Pi and hooked up a microphone. An Arduino controlled the coffee maker. They can ask their googly-eyed coffee maker for the weather! D’aw. But they can’t tell it to make them coffee. We’ll get to

White supremacists made calls last week urging their online supporters to harass Jewish people in Whitefish, Montana. The anti-Semitic attacks come after Sherry Spencer, mother of prominent white nationalist and alt-right leader Richard Spencer, claimed the reaction to her son’s views hurt her real estate business in the town. Her statements have since fueled the online vitriol of trolls, who’ve labeled Jewish people there with the Star of David and even directed harassment at a chil

Pregnancy changes women’s brains in ways that help them bond with and care for their babies, new research shows. These changes in brain structure were found to last for two years after birth, suggesting that pregnancy physiologically changes mothers to understand their babies’ needs.
The study — published today in the journal Nature Neuroscience — found that, in women who had been pregnant, the volume of grey matter decreased in certain brain areasinvolved in the ability

In a post today, Mark Zuckerberg revealed the details of his ambitious year-long project to build his own “Home AI.” Dubbed Jarvis, the system is basically an advanced Smart Home, letting you give voice and text commands to any device in the house. The Facebook CEO is a little late in the reveal — he initially said he’d demo the system in September — but the result is a fascinating look at exactly how far you can get home-brewing your own Smart Home.
Zuckerberg buil

The first time I watched Raiders of the Lost Ark, I was hypnotized by its iconic face melting scene. I found myself entranced by its waxy effect. The intent was nasty. The execution, oddly artistic. I suddenly found candles far more intriguing.In the online age, there’s a place on YouTube for weirdos like me. The expanding region is full of people melting paint balls, calculators, jawbreakers, styrofoam, and my god does the list go on. If there’s ever a household object you’ve

 Eight in 10 Americans are now shopping online, according to a new study from Pew Research out this morning. That’s 79 percent of U.S. consumers who shop on the web or their phones, up from just 22 percent back in 2000. Over half (51 percent) have also bought something from their mobile phone, the study found, and 15 percent purchased after clicking through on a link shared on social… Read More

Everyone’s trying to kill Keanu Reeves in the new trailer for John Wick: Chapter 2, but by the end of the clip he’s murmuring “I’ll kill them all,” so it seems like everyone’s on the same page here. The upcoming sequel to 2014’s John Wick again stars Reeves as Wick, a retired hitman who is forced back into the game by an international assassins guild.At one point in the trailer, Laurence Fishburne says “Somebody get this man a gun,” which bas

Ever reached into your pocket to find your phone had been snatched? Dutch film student and former iPhone owner Anthony van der Meer experienced that awful feeling first-hand while having lunch in Amsterdam. Unsatisfied with the response from the Amsterdam police, who register an average of 300 stolen phones per week, Meer decided to find out what kind of person steals a phone. He downloaded spyware software on a decoy Android phone, intentionally got the phone stolen, and was able to spy on his

Ever reached into your pocket to find your phone had been snatched? Dutch film student and former iPhone owner Anthony van der Meer experienced that awful feeling first-hand while having lunch in Amsterdam. Unsatisfied with the response from the Amsterdam police, who register an average of 300 stolen phones per week, Meer decided to find out what kind of person steals a phone. He downloaded DIY security software on a decoy Android phone, intentionally got the phone stolen, and was able to spy on

A bipartisan House Oversight and Government Reform Committee report released today urges Congress to pass legislation to regulate cell-site simulation surveillance devices like the Stingray.
Committee urges Congress to pass legislation
The devices, used by local and federal law enforcement agencies around the country, have been controversial, both for their power to track mobile devices and the secrecy often accompanying their use. As the report notes, the devices are still often used by local l

Ever since Rogue One: A Star Wars Story was first announced, fan expectations for the film have been high, but emotions have been complicated. This is the first Star Wars-related film that isn’t specifically part of the nine-episode franchise George Lucas pioneered back in 1977. It’s the first big-screen “side story” to take its own direction and its own narrative cues. Virtually all the characters are original to the movie, apart from a few old friends making minor appea

I’m going to hit you with spoilers right off the bat, so stop here if you haven’t seen Rogue One — but man, did that Vader / Krennic choking scene seem weirdly sexual to anyone? Or at least, like it was playing into an existing meme that has been relentlessly sexualized by the internet? And maybe like the writers were aware that it was doing so? And in being aware, like they were perhaps co-opting it into officially endorsed canon?
I should probably start from the beginning.
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AT&T’s new chat bot is named Atticus, presumably after Atticus Finch, the dad-lawyer in the famed Harper Lee novel To Kill a Mockingbird. Or perhaps after Gregory Peck’s portrayal of the World’s Greatest Dad-Lawyer in the 1962 film To Kill a Mockingbird. Maybe it’s named after the super old and very racist Atticus Finch who appears in Harper Lee’s 2015 novel Go Set a Watchman? Hopefully not?In any case, Atticus the AT&T bot will talk at you about pop culture

There is a scene in Sex and the City when Carrie Bradshaw begins writing for Vogue and her editor scrutinizes Bradshaw’s knowledge about fashion. “Men I may not know. But shoes — shoes I know,” she quips back.
This is exactly how I feel about video games — you can challenge me on just about any random skill or topic in the entire world, but when it comes to puzzle games, I will take you down. Which is why a new competitive version of TwoDots may just be the death of

Facebook today announced that its Messenger app is now capable of performing group video calls with up to 50 participants. For the first six participants, the app will stream everyone’s camera feed to one another in a grid-like view. After six, Messenger will display only the dominant speaker’s feed. That makes Messenger’s video chat feature one of the more robust options in the industry, seeing as how both Google Hangouts and Microsoft Skype have 10-person limits on their cons

After going on sale for preorder last week, following an extended delay from the original October launch window, Apple's AirPods officially launched today. So if you missed out on the first wave of shipments online, you can now try your luck in stores.
Unfortunately, Apple isn't offering any easy way to check inventory in stores. The Verge called Apple Stores in several major cities, but were unable to confirm any AirPods availability over the phone. However, if you're willing to brave your loca

At a glance, emoji are simple. Each icon visually represents something instantly recognizable — food, a happy face, a high-five. The creation of an emoji is hardly so straightforward. Each icon requires a carefully researched proposal, review by a subcommittee, refinement, approval, and, most importantly, someone willing to champion the emoji through the process.Paul Hunt is a type designer at Adobe who helped bring the orange heart and more gender-inclusive emoji to Unicode 10, the upcomi

Airbnb is developing a flight-booking tool, according to a new report from Bloomberg. The product is still early in development, according to the report, and it’s unclear how Airbnb would acquire the necessary data or integrate flight-booking into the existing offerings. Still, the new service is seen as an important part of the company’s long-term strategy, intended to launch before a planned IPO in 2018.
The move would put Airbnb in even greater competition with giants like Expedia

There’s one film that routinely ends up at the top of any list of best science fiction films: Blade Runner. Ridley Scott’s 1982 cyberpunk noir has inspired many films, but it’s never received a sequel until now. The first trailer for Denis Villeneuve’s Blade Runner 2049 just hit the web.There’s been little known about the film, aside from its cast: Harrison Ford is returning to reprise his role as Richard Decker, and will be joined by the likes of Ryan Gosling, Robi

The therapist had been working for Talkspace, a popular text-based therapy app, for a few months when she first felt forced to violate her legal and professional obligations.
She had just begun working with a new patient when he told her a family member had been driving drunk with the patient's baby in the car. Most states in the country, including the therapist’s, legally require licensed therapists to report child abuse, neglect, or endangerment to an appropriate agency, such as law enfo

You can expect a deeper look at the Lenovo Phab 2 Pro this week, the first phone with Google's depth-sensing Tango technology baked in. We'll also be telling you how Snopes works and taking a look at the bubble wrap of the future. You can also look forward to a new "Versus" video from Lauren Goode that will... blow you away.
Tuesday will see Telltale's season three premiere of its Walking Dead series. Titled “A New Frontier,” the game will play out like an interactive drama with an e

Waymo, the autonomous car maker that was recently spun out of Google as a standalone company (operating under the Alphabet umbrella), has provided the first glimpse of its self-driving Chrysler Pacifica Hybrid minivans.
Last Tuesday, Google revealed it was spinning off its eight-year-old self-driving car division, with the former president and CEO of Hyundai North America John Krafcik heading up the new Waymo unit. Google announced back in May that it was working with Fiat Chrysler Automobi