Technology news

"And someone is calling my name / From the back of the Panda Express."
Alternative rock band and The OC soundtrack extraordinaires The Killers have called out popular restaurant chain Panda Express on Twitter for seemingly using their lyrics in a fortune cookie.
SEE ALSO: Wendy's Twitter account still has (fresh, never frozen) beef with the world
While far from the first to utter the phrase, the group is playfully seeking free orange chicken for life for the restaurant's use of their song title

If you haven't gotten over Apple removing the headphone jack from the iPhone 7, then make it your New Year's resolution to do so because Android phones are almost certainly going to follow suit and gut the port.
Word on the street is HTC's next flagship phone, expected to be unveiled on Thursday, will be the latest phone to kill the headphone jack.
SEE ALSO: Here's what the most expensive headphones in the world sound like
Images posted to Weibo (via Android Police) claiming to be HTC's unannoun

The Miami Heat announced partnered with esports organization Misfits today, joining the growing list of traditional sports teams and individuals testing the esports waters with investments and acquisitions.
With the Heat's new (undisclosed) stake in Misfits, the NBA franchise will help the esports organization with marketing, branding, retail, driving revenue and outfitting its players. Misfits, which has teams and players in Overwatch, League of Legends, Super Smash Bros., Hearthstone and Heroe

If Mark Zuckerberg's dog could grasp the concepts of marketing and technology, he'd probably object to his starring role in Facebook's latest video. But alas, Beast is just a cute Silicon Valley dog, and so here we are.
To celebrate Beast's 6th birthday — HBD, li'l guy — Facebook made an Oculus employee 3D-print a miniature version of the unofficial company dog. 
SEE ALSO: 2016: The year Facebook became the bad guy
Zuckerberg posted the video to his page on Tuesday:It is, in ess

Tesla has hired Chris Lattner as vice president of autopilot software, bringing him over from Apple where he was in charge of the Developer Tools Department. At Tesla, Lattner will lead the Autopilot engineering team and “accelerate the future of autonomous driving,” according to a Tesla blog post.
In his 11 years at Apple, Lattner led development of the Swift programming language and also led work on Xcode and Apple’s CPU and GPU compilers and a number of other development too

Paul Ryan has warned Americans that he plans to defund Planned Parenthood, and women everywhere are listening.
Planned Parenthood president Cecile Richards appeared on CNN Monday to discuss the upcoming GOP onslaught on reproductive rights. According to Richards, the organization has seen a "900 percent increase in women trying to get into Planned Parenthood to get an IUD.”
SEE ALSO: Why 2016 was a huge year for women's health tech
"They’re desperately concerned that they might lose

After the not-very-successful, modular G5, LG is changing its strategy. The company's new flagship, the LG G6, will not be modular at all; according to new reports, it will feature a new, waterproof design with a large screen and very small bezels. 
Chinese outlet Etnews claims the phone will be unveiled on Feb. 26 — one day before the official start of the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona — with general availability starting on March 10. 
SEE ALSO: LG's new 4K TV is thin

Here's another new years resolution to add to your list: ball like Lisa Zimouche. 
The 17 year old has posted hundreds of impressive Instagram videos of the coolest tricks with a soccer ball, and in one of her latest, the freestyler shows off her slick moves in London. 
SEE ALSO: Soccer-playing Santa has some serious gameBack at home! London was dope!! 🔥🙏🏼 Tag friends & happy new year!! 🎊 Bonne année à vous tous 🙏🏼 #ykwi

Twitter binges are Donald Trump's lifeline — often the thing that gives him comfort after someone says something remotely critical about him.
But apparently most Americans are not fans of the late night and early morning ramblings, according to a recent poll by Quinnipiac University.
In fact, 64 percent of voters polled said the soon-to-be U.S. president should just delete his account altogether. And young people are even more tired of it — 71 percent of those between ages 18-34 say

After eight years of Barack and Michelle Obama serving as America’s warm, hip and understanding parents, the moment has finally arrived — the Trump takeover.
While there's no doubt we'll miss President Obama forgetting his phone, telling dad jokes and passionately singing at every chance he gets, this inauguration day will require an extra box of tissues because we also have to say farewell to the coolest first lady of all time — Michelle Obama.
SEE ALSO: Michelle Oba

Tonight at 9PM ET, President Barack Obama will give his farewell address, before handing the reins over to President-elect Trump later this month. If you don’t happen to be in Chicago to watch it, the next best thing may be a 360-degree live stream of the event, hosted by VRScout. The video will be shot with multiple Nokia Ozo cameras, placed around the venue at McCormick Place. You can watch it either in full virtual reality (through YouTube on PlayStation VR and Google Daydream, for inst

UPDATE: Jan. 10, 2017, 5:59 p.m. EST The Trump transition team walked back Robert F. Kennedy's assertion that a vaccine commission is being formed, instead stating he is "exploring the possibility of forming a committee on Autism."Trump pushes back on RFK statement pic.twitter.com/FTpzGUn9d6
— Maggie Haberman (@maggieNYT) January 10, 2017 
President-elect Donald J. Trump has asked   anti-vaccine activist Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to chair a commission on vaccine safety, Kennedy

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg and wife Priscilla Chan have hired David Plouffe, the manager of Barack Obama’s 2008 presidential campaign, to lead policy and advocacy efforts for their philanthropic arm. The news of Plouffe’s new role at the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, as the organization is called, was announced in a Facebook post published on Zuckerberg’s page this afternoon. Also joining the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative is Ken Mehlman, the manager of George W. Bush’s 2004

President Obama will make a farewell address from his hometown of Chicago on Jan. 10.
With Obama's final day in office just 10 days away, many expect his goodbye speech to forgo mentions of past victories and instead focus on the future — life under a President Trump.
SEE ALSO: Fill out this job application form to be considered for Trump's cabinet
I'm honored and excited to say that I actually wrote President Obama's farewell address and was given permission to publish the five pages of t

Are mailmen and dogs even enemies anymore?
That is certainly not the case for Boulder, Colorado letter carrier Jeff Kramer and his friend Tashi, an elderly black lab. Kramer, who says hi to Tashi every day on his route, recently installed a ramp that helps the 14-year-old pup get from his house to his front yard. 
SEE ALSO: Mailman and big dog share a heartwarming daily routine
"It's incredible," Karen Dimetrosky, Tashi's owner, told the Daily Camera in Boulder. "I can't imagine not having

HTC announced the Vive Tracker — a small puck that lets third-party companies make motion-tracking VR accessories — last week at CES 2017. And we’re already starting to see some of those projects appear, one of the most interesting being dotdotdash’sD3-U virtual reality camera.
Now, as far as I can tell, the D3-U is just a controller: it doesn’t actually take real-life pictures, but it does offer a tactile object with controls that you can hold in your hand and inte

The Chan Zuckerberg Initiative is getting serious about philanthropy. 
The philanthropic endeavor of Mark Zuckerberg and his wife, Priscilla Chan, just recruited David Plouffe, Uber's head of policy and an Obama alum. 
The longtime political operative will serve as president of policy and advocacy for the initiative, he announced on Facebook. 
"I am thrilled to be joining Mark Zuckerberg and Priscilla Chan on the journey to advance human potential and promote equal opportunity thr

The Women's March on Washington is fast-approaching, and if you don't already have travel plans booked to D.C. you might consider running there.
Alison Desir is a running coach, the founder of Harlem Run, and a contributor to Women’s Running magazine. After she reflected on the negative implications Donald Trump's political administration could have for women, members of the LQBTQ community and America as a whole, she decided it was time to take a stand — or should we say, a sprint.

We've got a very early contender for father of the year.
Imgur user DomZombie shared an incredible post showing readers the custom lunch bags he creates for his son every day to help him break out of his shell in elementary school."For the past 3 years or so, I've been drawing on my son's lunch bags when he took lunches to elementary school," the artist shared in his post. "Even though he has friends, he's pretty shy, so I started doing these to help break the ice and get conversations going."
S

Let this be a lesson in confidence: a couple was brave enough to invite President Barack Obama into their wedding party, with no fear that he'd steal their thunder.
On Saturday in Jacksonville, Florida, one of the president's personal aides and close friend Marvin Nicholson married Helen Pajcic and bravely had the Commander-in-chief stand behind him as one of his groomsmen.
SEE ALSO: Meryl Streep, Tom Hanks, Solange and more attend the Obamas' farewell partyPresident Obama Was One Dapper Groomsm

Ronda Rousey got beat the heck down in her first fight in more than a year some 10 days ago. That makes two straight losses for the UFC sensation who boasted an undefeated record and seemed unbeatable as recently as 2015. 
What will the superstar who's branched into movies, book-writing and other trappings of celebrity do next? We don't know, because she hasn't said. But Rousey did just break her post-fight silence by posting a grim JK Rowling quote to Instagram. 
SEE ALSO: The most da

The world's most populous country will not be getting Pokémon Go. 
Apparently, China thinks the game is just too dangerous to allow due to public safety concerns, according to Reuters.
SEE ALSO: 'Pokémon Go' will serve up free goodies on Christmas Day
China's State Administration of Press, Publication, Radio, Film and Television cites "a high level of responsibility to national security and the safety of people's lives and property" and a "threat to geographical information se

American Apparel is about to become a bit less American.
Canadian clothing maker Gildan Activewear said Tuesday that it would buy the rights to the beleaguered California-based company's brand after placing the winning bid in a bankruptcy auction. The final buying price was $88 million.
SEE ALSO: American Eagle is on the verge of a makeover, college bro-style
The sale includes all of American Apparel's intellectual property — the name, logo and any other trademarks — along with certa

Want to make money? Become a doctor. 
LinkedIn on Tuesday released its list of the 20 highest paying jobs in the United States, as measured by salary data collected on the jobs network. 
The top 9? They all fell under medicine and healthcare. The highest placing tech job lands at No. 11. 
"These jobs point to growing industries in the broader U.S. economy, meaning you don’t necessarily have to be a doctor or engineer to get paid well. While the healthcare industry is growing

Brotherly love is a fickle thing.
After winning the Golden Globe Award for Best Actor in a drama, Casey Affleck's speech was heart warming as he thanked many people for his success with one notable exception: his older brother Ben. Well, as it is an older siblings' job to humiliate their siblings, the older Affleck did not let the snub get away unpunished. 
He appeared on Jimmy Kimmel Live! last night and proceeded to tell some truly shocking facts about his younger brother including the f

We've gotten used to calling on Siri, Cortana and Google to answer questions, give directions and tell really bad jokes — and it looks like yet another oddly-named digital assistant is about to join the roster.
According to a screenshot of the Korean version of Samsung Pay's beta page captured by SamMobile Monday, Samsung's upcoming AI program will be named Bixby. The name appeared as a category available for selection on a drop-down menu that appeared on the site. 
SEE ALSO: Samsung

Rooster Teeth's new half-hour comedy roundtable series is headed to go90, Mashable has exclusively learned.
What Do You Know?, hosted by Rooster Teeth co-founder and personality Joel Heyman, will debut on the Verizon mobile app on Jan. 30.
Each episode will feature Heyman and a panel of guests — including Rooster Teeth personalities, comedians and various experts — who will weigh in on a wide variety of topics including robots, online trolling, college, time travel, catfishing, cheat

The HTC 10 earned itself a lot of love from the people who bought one last year — but as best anyone can tell, that wasn’t a whole lot of people. More recently there’s been the Bolt (a Sprint exclusive in the US) and the Google-branded, HTC-made Pixel, but it seems that HTC’s next major smartphone is due soon. Very soon.As noted by Android Police, leaked images of a device codenamed “Ocean Blue” show off a phone with glass covering both the front and back with

Apple will do something with Augmented Reality.
That’s not rumor or innuendo. Apple CEO Tim Cook repeatedly expressed his strong interest in the technology over the more isolating virtual reality over the last 12 months. Apple  acquired an AR company over a year ago. And 2017 promises to be a very big year for the iPhone. Why wouldn’t Apple bring its own brand of mixed reality to its flagship product?
That all makes sense.
Robert Scoble’s report does not.
SEE ALSO: These a

Apple will do something with Augmented Reality.
That’s not rumor or innuendo. Apple CEO Tim Cook repeatedly expressed his strong interest in the technology over the more isolating virtual reality over the last 12 months. Apple  acquired an AR company over a year ago. And 2017 promises to be a very big year for the iPhone. Why wouldn’t Apple bring its own brand of mixed reality to its flagship product?
That all makes sense.
Robert Scoble’s report does not.
SEE ALSO: These a

Scientists caught a male Japanese macaque red-butted (so to speak) trying to mate with several female sika deer. In the video, a few of the deer try to shake the little monkey off, but others just wait for it to be over.The video of the attempted interspecies coupling was filmed on Yakushima Island, Japan, in the fall of 2015 — the peak of macaque breeding season. It was published with an academic paper today in the journal Primates, and was first reported by New Scientist.The macaques and

Getting your hair caught in anything can hurt, but getting your hair caught in the moving propellers of a drone must be the worst. 
Sheena, the woman in this video, told Mashable that the drone ended up in her hair after her husband, Matthew, decided to land it on her back. Next thing she knew, the drone flew up, got caught in her hair and Matthew began filming the whole debacle. Then, their innocent young daughter got hold of the remote, fiddled with the controls and got Sheena's hair fur

Every January, the auto industry gathers in Detroit for the (terribly named) North American International Auto Show. It falls just after CES and reminds us that, for all the futuristic tech we saw in Las Vegas, car companies are mostly concerned about selling cars today.This year is no different. We have a handful of concepts that could become cars in a matter of years, not decades, but the bulk of the show is new SUVs, crossovers, and sedans that you'll be able to buy within a few months. We're

Aziz Ansari will host Saturday Night Live on Jan. 21, the program announced Tuesday.
The actor — best known for his work on Parks and Recreation and Netflix's Master of None — is also an accomplished stand up. 
SEE ALSO: The 10 best 'Saturday Night Live' sketches of 2016
It wasn't immediately clear what project Ansari will be promoting; a Season 2 premiere date for Master of None has not been set but is expected later this year. In September, Ansari and showrunner Alan Yang won

The moment you start watching Netflix’s new show A Series of Unfortunate Events, Neil Patrick Harris implores you to stop. “Look away, look away,” he croons in the opening theme, “This show will wreck your evening, your whole life, and your day.” It’s the same approach the Series of Unfortunate Events books have always taken, both in their text and in their marketing: drawing fans in by telling them their lives would be much more enjoyable if they looked for a

Anyone with a Facebook account is familiar with the blackhole that the News Feed can become. What starts as a quick catchup with your friends and family's updates can quickly descend into hours of time wasted scrolling past viral links and photos.
SEE ALSO: Binge-watching is going to make your carbon footprint soar
But while News Feed is considered something of a productivity killer, other parts of Facebook, like Groups and Messenger, can be extremely useful for school or work. 
Thus, an en

Another year, another novelty burger. 
Starting Jan. 14 at The Guest Café & Diner in Osaka, Japan, eaters will have the chance to dine on a burger stamped with Hello Kitty's adorable cartoon visage, Rocket News 24 reports. 
SEE ALSO: This digestive tracker can help you control your farts
The speciality burger is just one of many Hello Kitty-themed dishes on the restaurant's new menu, which is available for a limited time only. Through March, The Guest will offer main dishes,

There’s a problem with the way airlines manage passenger information — and Instagram is making it worse. After decades of technological progress, airline’s proof that you are who you say you are still boils down to a single six-digit number, encoded in the barcode on your boarding pass. And because of Instagram (particularly #boardingpass), those bar codes are easy to find.
The vulnerability itself is old news, but a presentation to Chaos Computer Club this year reminded the wo

We still have a little over a month of waiting until The Walking Dead returns for the second half of Season 7. But AMC has taken pity on us and released an intriguing new synopsis for the next batch of episodes in which Rick (Andrew Lincoln) and his group prepare to take the fight to Negan (Jeffrey Dean Morgan) and his Saviors.
SEE ALSO: Study says zombies would wipe out humans in less than 100 days
Here's what AMC has to say about the show's new direction:
Spencer was already undermining Rick's

Less than two weeks before Donald Trump's inauguration, many of us are still having a hard time understanding the story of what just happened to America. It is, after all, a supremely improbable tale. 
A reality-TV personality with no political experience and a string of bankruptcies on his resume built, in the space of a year, a racist cult represented by a frog? I can buy that. Almost. 
But the notion that this same cult leader was elected president with the help of Russian hackers,