Technology news

Google employees in offices around the world staged a walkout on Monday afternoon in protest of President Donald Trump’s executive order banning immigration in seven Muslim-majority countries. Using the hashtag #GooglersUnite, employees tweeted photos and videos of walkout actions around the world, including at headquarters in Mountain View.The walkout came after employees donated more than $2 million to a crisis fund that will be distributed among nonprofit groups working to support refug

There are a lot of kitschy things you can do with the new MacBook Touch Bar. Autocorrect your typos! Fast forward through a YouTube video! Cheat on a test? Not for bar exams in North Carolina, according to a new announcement by the state’s Board of Law Examiners.
As reported by Apple Insider, the board today released a notice requiring bar test takers disable the Touch Bar function if they plan on using their new MacBooks for the upcoming February exam. The announcement doesn’t point

Amazon founder and CEO Jeff Bezos weighed in this afternoon on President Trump’s executive order banning entry to the US for citizens of seven majority-Muslim nations. Amazon’s VP of Human Relations wrote a statement on the ban over the weekend, but this new message comes directly from Bezos himself.Washington state, where Amazon is headquartered, is the first to directly take on Trump’s executive order. The state’s attorney general, Bob Ferguson, announced on Monday that

Lyft saw greater downloads than Uber on iOS in the US for the first time ever on Sunday, January 29th, according to App Annie, a San Francisco-based analytics firm. This appears to be a result of the #DeleteUber campaign, in which users protested the ride-hailing company’s response to Trump’s immigration ban by deleting their Uber account.climbing in the rankings as a result of the social media campaign
For now, Uber’s loss appears to be Lyft’s gain. Lyft’s daily iO

Last week, I pondered the fashion value of Apple’s AirPods with The Verge’s Sean O’Kane and our friends from Racked. Some people, both on Instagram (where we posted that awesome headline photo) and in the comments of the article, noted that they’d buy AirPods if they came in black. A jet black iPhone 7 with black AirPods would look sharp as hell. But, as we all know, Apple really doesn’t do the whole color options thing when it comes to complimentary accessories. Wh

Over the weekend, Joe Pocatello’s documentary Joshua: Teenager vs. Superpower won Sundance’s Audience Award in the World Cinema Documentary Competition. In the wake of recent widespread protests across the United States, that feels particularly relevant. The causes in Joshua are radically different from the ones currently preoccupying America, but the pattern of government action and popular resistance is much the same. Joshua is fiercely optimistic, providing an successful example o

Beloved characters come and go on Game of Thrones, but a video game mod will help curb the pain. Total War: Attila players looking to reunite with their favorite dead characters should check out the Total War: Seven Kingdoms mod, which has a new “Beyond the Wall” update. (Spoilers ahead, obviously.)
The mod, as spotted by Eurogamer, adds characters such as the dearly departed Ned Stark, Roose Bolton, Mance Rayder, and Loras Tyrell as playable generals. More lively characters include

It looks like Uber is trying to get back into the good graces of what it sees as a very specific demographic — people who like the American Civil Liberties Union on Facebook.Uber CEO Travis Kalanick published an internal memo about President Trump’s executive orders barring refugees, immigrants, and even legal US residents from seven Muslim-majority countries on the company’s website Saturday morning. That memo has also been published to Facebook, and Uber appears to have used

At a press conference today, Donald Trump’s press secretary Sean Spicer brought along some handy props. During a discussion of Trump’s recent executive action to restructure the National Security Council (NSC), Spicer held up a printed tweet to illustrate his point that there had been “misreporting” on this issue. The tweet was from Obama’s former National Security Advisor, Susan Rice, wondering where the CIA fit into Trump’s executive order.Rice’s quest

Apple said earlier today it was releasing the latest version of Apple Watch software to developers, which lets those app makers use Siri on the Watch for certain functions within their apps. This new Siri option for third-party app makers is significant, especially at a time when more and more gadgets offer voice control, but it’s the Watch’s new Theater Mode that has me more intrigued in the short term.Because for the past couple weeks, I’ve been wearing an Apple Watch to slee

On its surface, Netflix’s new original movie iBoy sounds like a bad idea. But on closer inspection, it’s also a bad idea that’s been poorly executed. The movie, based on a YA novel by Kevin Brooks, is about a high schooler named Tom (Bill Milner) who’s left with bits of his cellphone embedded in his brain after a violent attack. (There’s no real explanation; it just gets shoved in there.) As freak accident would have it, getting a cellphone lodged in his skull besto

Over the weekend, the hashtag #DeleteUber, in which people posted screenshots of themselves deleting the app in protest of Uber’s response to the refugee crisis, went viral. This happened despite the ride-hailing company’s effort to out-empathize its tech rivals by pledging to compensate drivers stranded overseas and set up a $3 million legal fund for affected drivers. In fact, Uber’s response only seemed to enrage the internet even more, as scores of customers and celebrities

Last weekend, MIT mechanical engineering student Niki Mossafer Rahmati boarded a flight from Tehran to Boston with a connection in Doha, Qatar. While she was in transit, President Donald Trump signed an executive order barring citizens from seven predominantly Muslim countries, Iran included, from entering the US. Rahmati, who holds a valid student visa according to MIT’s campus newspaper, was blocked from boarding her flight in Qatar.Yesterday, on a frigid Boston afternoon, 200 MIT studen

After agitating to get Google to bring its best apps from iOS to Android, I was gratified to see last month that Gboard, Google’s excellent iPhone keyboard, made the jump. Then I used it on my Pixel and discovered that it’s inferior to the iOS version. Google, on its own phone, built a bad Google experience.Which got me to thinking and made me realize something: the Google experience on Google’s phone is confusing and often bad. Back when I reviewed the Pixel, I noted that ther

Dropbox’s latest tool for businesses, a piece of collaborative editing software called Paper, is launching globally today. Paper has been in the works at Dropbox for quite some time, having first been announced in October of 2015 before entering a public beta phase in August of last year. Dropbox’s software is similar to Google’s suite of workplace cloud apps. Paper — itself a minimal document editor and writing tool like Google Docs — is the focal point, while all

Remember the LG UltraFine 5K Display that Apple says was specifically designed to work with the New MacBook Pro and as a replacement for the Thunderbolt Display? Well apparently it wasn’t designed to work next to routers. According to 9to5Mac, the 27-inch monitor is useless when it’s within two meters of a router, as the UltraFine 5K Display will flicker, disconnect, or freeze computers due to electromagnetic interference.
In emails to 9to5Mac, LG acknowledged the problem — whi

Today we got a clearer look at LG’s rumored new Android Wear flagship smartwatches. Evan Blass tweeted an image of the LG Watch Style in silver and rose gold. The bands and watchface are very neutral, making me think LG is potentially going through its Kim Kardashian camel coat phase.
The LG Watch Style models are rumored to include a 1.2-inch, 360 x 360 screen, 240mAh battery, and 512MB of RAM. Both are also expected to be water resistant and to include 4GB of onboard storage.
LG Watch St

Following President Trump’s executive order banning immigration from seven Muslim-majority countries, Silicon Valley has quickly responded with statements, feature updates, and donations to support human rights organizations like the American Civil Liberties Union. Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey criticized the policy via a tweet on Saturday — but today the company has added a “Proudly made in America by immigrants” tagline on the Periscope app’s loading screen.
“Peri

A few months ago I did something extremely out of character: I went out and bought a TV without obsessively reading product reviews. I just drove to Walmart and purchased the nicest-looking TV in stock for $500. It was a curved Samsung. This was an enormous mistake, and I should have just bought a Vizio E-Series. My wife Becky loudly reminds me of this mistake nearly every time we turn the TV on; she hates this product more than any other half-baked gadget I have forced into our lives. So I aske

Look at this cool computer! It sure makes this guy laugh and laugh. He's such a cool guy, he even takes notes with pen and paper and has need for a desk lamp because computers don't define him.
Except... if I could make one request.
Please don't join my Overwatch team, snap pick McCree, and then refuse to use your mouse. I know your PC is made out of wood by Computer Direct Outlet in South Carolina. I get it. You bought a Volta V. It's special.There's a GeForce 1070 inside that box, and the wood

After Stranger Things won the trophy for Best Ensemble Drama at the 2017 Screen Actor’s Guild Awards on January 29th, David Harbour’s fiery speech about fighting bullies and injustice earned a standing ovation from a stunned crowd. No one captured the shock that comes from an unexpected “stay woke” message than Winona Ryder. Her bewildered but eventually enthusiastic reaction was hilariously meme-worthy, but it also mapped out the long, sometimes awkward road to becoming

Eidos Montreal, the developer behind Deus Ex: Human Revolution and its sequel Mankind Divided, is reportedly working on a game based on Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy. Eurogamer and Kotaku have published separate reports that the project is early in development.
Guardians of the Galaxy would reportedly be the second Marvel-based project in development by video publisher Square Enix, which recently announced a multi-game partnership with the comic publisher. The first game, announced last

Raz is making his virtual reality debut very soon: today developer Double Fine announced that Psychonauts in the Rhombus of Ruin will debut on PlayStation VR on February 21st.The VR game was originally announced in 2015, and features a story that directly follows the events cult classic game Psychonauts, which first released on PS2 in 2005. Rhombus of Ruin will once again star budding psychic Raz as he attempts to join the titular group of psychic secret agents.
The original game set itself apar

Despite orbiting nearly 240,000 miles from Earth, our Moon may be periodically mingling with our planet’s atmosphere. New research shows that oxygen from Earth could be journeying all the way out to the Moon, where it then gets lodged inside the lunar soil. It’s a process that’s likely been happening for 2.4 billion years, ever since oxygen formed around our planet, meaning the Moon’s soil may contain trapped particles from Earth’s ancient atmosphere.
This oxygen ex

Fitbit today released preliminary results for its upcoming fourth quarter earnings report, and the news isn’t good.The digital health and fitness company, which has led the wearables industry in market share for several consecutive quarters, warned investors that it experienced “softer-than-expected” demand for its products during the critical 2016 holiday quarter. It also said it would be laying off about 6 percent of its workforce, or around 110 employees.The news of the layo

Kal Penn has perfectly trolled a troll.
On Saturday, January 28th, the actor and political activist tweeted a screenshot of a hateful comment he’d received on Instagram. “...Because you don’t belong in this country you fucking joke,” it read. As a response Penn created a fundraising page to collect $2,500 for Syrian refugees. Penn titled the campaign “Donating to Syrian Refugees in the name of the dude who said I don’t belong in America.”
In two days, do

Apple has removed the tool that allows users to check whether a phone is Activation Locked from iCloud.com, as first reported by MacRumors. The tool allowed users to enter the serial number or IMEI of iOS devices to find out if Activation Lock was active, helping consumers who were interested in purchasing used devices avoid stolen ones.
When you visit icloud.com/activationlock you’ll find Apple’s 404 “Not Found” page, instead of the tool that has become the de facto auth

A story that’s been circulating over the past week — “Hotel ransomed by hackers as guests locked in rooms” — should be taken with a little more than just a pinch of salt.
According to a report (since amended) by The Local, the computer system at the four-star Austrian hotel, the Seehotel Jaegerwirt, was hacked and its electronic key system hijacked. Guests were reportedly locked in their rooms by hackers until a Bitcoin ransom worth €1,500 was paid. As a result

As airports fell into chaos in the wake of Donald Trump’s executive order this weekend, border agents confronted targeted travelers with an unusual request: access to their social media accounts. In Houston, an immigration lawyer named Mana Yegani reported Border Patrol agents checking new arrival’s Facebook pages, alongside questions about political views and associations.Four federal courts have now issued stays on the order, and the fight over its legality continues — but th

Presidential executive orders have come to the fore with the new Trump administration in the White House, which on Friday took the drastic step of banning incoming refugees from seven Muslim-majority nations in and around the Middle East. Google’s Doodle today reminds us of an earlier executive order, 9066, which was issued by President Franklin Roosevelt and had the effect of confining close to 120,000 US residents of Japanese descent to internment camps during World War II. It’s a

Car2Go, the car-sharing service owned by Daimler, announced today that for the first time, it would be offering something other than tiny, two-seat Smart cars. The company said it was adding thousands of new Mercedes-Benz luxury CLA and GLA sedans its fleet, with the goal of having them outnumber the Smarts by the end of 2017.
The new vehicles will be rolled out in six North American cities to start out: Austin, Portland, Seattle, Toronto, Vancouver, and Washington, DC. The goal is to make Car2G

 There’s a field full of flower delivery services to choose from these days from the old school 1-800-flowers and FTD to startups popping up over the last few years like BloomThat, Farmgirl Flowers, UrbanStems and The Bouqs. That last one just raised $24 million in Series C financing, bringing the total now to $43 million. The Bouqs doesn’t quite roll off the tongue but that fresh… Read More