Technology news

Fidget spinners are the most important thing happening in our culture right now, so it's only natural that a free-to-play iOS game called Finger Spinner is at the top of the charts.
To save you the trouble of downloading it and finding out: yes, it's bad. It's not just that it’s low quality; it's bad in a moral sense, too.
A virtual fidget spinner is the top free app in the app store right now.
pic.twitter.com/gZmQpc6ctm— Troy Osinoff (@yo) May 22, 2017Here are the basics: there's a

The latest update for the Amazon Video app on Xbox One S enables 4K playback, giving Microsoft’s console another source of UHD content. Many of Amazon’s original shows — Sneaky Pete, Bosch, and The Grand Tour among them — are available to stream in 4K. Netflix, Vudu, and Hulu also offer at least some 4K programming on Xbox One S.Oddly, Sony’s PlayStation 4 Pro console doesn’t yet support Amazon Video in 4K; we’ve reached out to Amazon for details on when

Since 2015, a Chinese gaming website has been hacking Xbox accounts and selling the proceeds on the open market, according to a complaint filed by Microsoft in federal court on Friday.
On its website, iGSKY presents itself as a gaming service company, offering players a way to pay for in-game credits and rare items — but according to Microsoft, many of those credits were coming from someone else’s wallet. The complaint alleges that the company made nearly $2 million in purchases thro

If you’ve tried sharing your Instagram posts to other social media accounts in the last day or two, you may have noticed the available sharing options trimmed down slightly. As it stands, there are options for Facebook, Twitter, and Tumblr, and nothing else. Do you get the feeling something’s missing, but aren’t sure what exactly? Let me save you some time: the Swarm and Flickr options are gone. Foursquare Swarm, the check-in app that lets you earn points for every time you ch

In what might be one of the biggest stories to come out of the Cannes Film Festival, Entertainment Weekly reports that Netflix has landed a project that will star Rihanna and Lupita Nyong’o in a story based on a viral meme. The untitled film will be directed by Ava DuVernay (Selma, the upcoming A Wrinkle in Time). Insecure creator Issa Rae is in talks to write the script.
The concept originations from a photo of the two celebrities back in 2014 at the Miu Miu show during Paris Fashion Week

Rockstar Games just announced that Red Dead Redemption 2 — the long-awaited sequel to 2010’s Red Dead Redemption — has been delayed from the original fall 2017 release date to spring 2018.Rockstar apologized for delay in a statement on its website explaining that “some extra time is necessary to ensure that we can deliver the best experience possible for our fans.” To make up for the delay, the company also released a new batch of screenshots from Red Dead Redemptio

Welcome to Twin Peaks Top 3, where I look at last night’s episode(s) of Showtime’s Twin Peaks revival and draw bad fan art of the top three most baffling moments that made an impression on me. If you’re looking for actual analysis and fan theories, we’ve got a big Question Club conversation for you to read instead, because you won’t find any of that here. Twin Peaks has always been a polarizing show, making even fans like myself question their loyalty at times. At t

On May 21st, David Lynch’s Twin Peaks returned to television, nearly 27 years after the end of its second season. About the only predictable thing about the revived show was that it was wildly unpredictable. Right at the top, audiences learned that FBI Special Agent Dale Cooper is still trapped in the mysterious Black Lodge, and that his doppelgänger — a snakeskin-wearing thug inhabited by the evil spirit Bob — is loose in the world, creating havoc and mischief. But everyt

Spider-Man: Homecoming star Tom Holland has signed on to star in the upcoming Uncharted film, playing the role of young Nathan Drake. Deadline reports that the role is based on a sequence in Uncharted 3: Drake’s Deception, turning the film into a prequel to the game series as opposed to the straightforward adaptation that was originally planned.
The Uncharted film will focus on Drake’s youth and his pivotal meeting with treasure-hunting businessman Victor “Sully” Sullivan

YouTube TV, Google’s over-the-top streaming service, just got an update for its iOS application that adds support for Apple’s AirPlay functionality.When it launched a few weeks ago, YouTube TV didn’t offer any apps for set-top boxes, meaning that the only way to get YouTube TV content on a television was through Google’s Chromecast. The addition of AirPlay support means that, in lieu of a native Apple TV app, that there’s at least an option now to use the streaming

Ubisoft just dropped the teaser trailer for Far Cry 5. As Abhi predicted, it’s on the way and set in Montana, either in the modern day or in the relatively-recent past. The trailer doesn’t show much besides the sweeping countryside and picturesque mountains of Big Sky Country. But that in and of itself is a big gear change for the series. Far Cry has run mostly on exoticized depictions of non-Western settings. Here’s the laundry list: Far Cry 1: Micronesia Far C

Silicon Valley is Mike Judge and Alec Berg’s biting comedy about the American tech industry, now in its fourth season. Every week, we’ll be taking one idea, scene, or joke and explain how it ties to the real Silicon Valley and speaks to an issue at the heart of the industry and its everlasting goal to change the world — and make boatloads of money in the process.
Spoilers ahead for the fifth episode of season 4, “The Blood Boy.”
Silicon Valley’s biggest streng

Lengthy stays on board the International Space Station don’t seem to hurt sperm fertility. In a new study, mice on Earth successfully gave birth to litters of pups after being fertilized with sperm that had been freeze-dried for nearly a year on the ISS. It’s potentially good news if, one day, animals and people will have to reproduce beyond Earth. But experts say there is still a lot more research that needs to be done to fully understand how the space environment affects reproducti

Our spinal column is different from that of apes because — yes, you guessed that right — we walk upright on two feet. But when did our distinctive back structure first evolve? The skeleton of an early human ancestor found in Africa shows that some features were already established at least 3.3 million years ago, earlier than previously thought.The fossil was found to have only 12 rib-bearing vertebrae, the same number as modern humans — and one fewer than most apes. That featur

A robotic police officer is making its debut on the streets of Dubai tomorrow night — and I hope everyone there has watched Robocop. The uniformed bot greeted visitors to the Gulf Information Security and Expo Conference. After the conference wraps on Tuesday, it will be deployed to the streets of Dubai. The robot rolls around on wheels. It can salute, bow, speak in multiple languages, and recognize hand gestures from up to 1.5 meters away, according to the Khaleej Times. I

In January, Facebook disabled more than 14,000 accounts for revenge porn and sexual extortion, and 33 of those incidents involved children, according to a report from The Guardian. The outlet also reported that Facebook moderators escalated tens of thousands of potential cases that month.
Rules allow “moderate displays of sexuality”
Other documents on moderation rules obtained by the outlet reportedly make clear that, as long as the content is between adults, Facebook allows content

Samsung is offering a new deal for the Galaxy S8 that’s pretty appealing if you’re a T-Mobile customer: buy one S8 from Samsung’s website, get a second one free after a instant rebate.
Samsung’s deal is refreshingly simple and free of fine print
There have been a few deals for the Galaxy S8 offering a second, free phone from carriers (including T-Mobile), but Samsung’s deal is refreshingly simple and free of fine print. Unlike other deals, where you had to activate

Two companies are taking autonomous vehicles to the next level with self-sailing ships. Norwegian companies Yara International and Kongsberg Maritime are teaming up to create the world’s first autonomous, fully-electric, zero-emission cargo ship. The battery-driven vessel will be able to haul 100 containers up to 65 nautical miles, according to The Journal. Yara and Kongsberg believe this should cut down on 40,000 truck journeys per year. Yara, a fertilizer company, ordinarily n

There’s always a moment of dread when your check your email – because for every new email you receive, it probably comes with a new task you need to put on your personal radar. The feature-packed Mailbird will not only streamline your inbox, it’ll help get your life running more smoothly and efficiently. Right now, you can get lifetime access to Mailbird’s host of tools for only $19, 75 percent off, from TNW Deals. On its most basic level, Mailbird handles all the email

We know Microsoft is hosting a Surface event in Shanghai tomorrow, and leaks basically confirm it’s a new Surface Pro. Now it seems Microsoft isn’t particularly intent on keeping the device a surprise, given Panos Panay tweeted an image of a bunch of new keyboards last night. You might’ve noticed the Type Covers featured in the tweet are basically identical to the new colors and Alcantara material used on the new Surface Laptop, though it’s worth noting the Surface

Nearly eight months after the phone was announced, Mophie is introducing a battery pack for the Google Pixel XL. The juice pack will extend talk time on the Pixel XL past 50 hours, thanks to a 2,950mAh rechargeable battery, which can be wirelessly charged using any Qi charging solution. The pack can also be charged using a USB-C cable.
The juice pack comes with Mophie’s usual slate of features, including prioritizing phone charging before the battery pack, the ability to shut the pack off

Source code management platform GitHub is making it easier for developers to find the right tools to improve and fine-tune their existing workflows. In a blog post, the company announced it is launching a new Marketplace to help its members effortlessly discover and purchase apps to use across the overall development process – “from continuous integration to project management and code review.” The freshly introduced platform essentially makes it possible for developers t

In all great magic tricks, it is misdirection that convinces the audience that something magical took place. You can say the same for the privacy policies of various tech companies as it’s like a mirage where you think that your privacy is safe and secure but it’s far from it. Piracy policy is an important piece of document that most of us gloss over or decide not to read at all. According to Mikko Hypponen, the Chief Research Officer (CRO) at F-Secure, “It doesn’t matte

Sales of tablet computers are in a death spiral. It seems the novelty of the devices has long expired, and people have realized that if you want to do something other than watch Netflix, they aren’t especially useful. But then again, maybe not. I just got back from TNW Conference, in the gorgeous splendor of Amsterdam’s Westergasfabriek. The two day event featured an impressive lineup of international speakers, including Kevin Rose, Ryan Hoover, David Karp, and other tech luminaries

Steven Yang quit his job at Google in the summer of 2011 to build the products he felt the world needed: a line of reasonably priced accessories that would be better than the ones you could buy from Apple and other big-name brands. These accessories — batteries, cables, chargers — would solve our most persistent gadget problem by letting us stay powered on at all times. There were just a few problems: Yang knew nothing about starting a company, building consumer electronics, or selli

Nike has unveiled a new collection of Apple Watch bands that match with corresponding pairs of Nike sneakers. Called "Day to Night,” the collection features four different colors of sport bands that include perforated holes to air out your sweat. Despite the name, the new Nike bands don’t glow in the dark, do anything literally transformative, or are meant to be appropriate attire from morning workouts to cocktail hour — Nike says the inspiration actually comes from the various

In early April, open-source social platform Mastodon had its 15 minutes of fame. The service has been compared ad nauseam to Twitter, from which it borrows its basic structure: short messages from users, retweets (or retoots, in its parlance), chronological timelines updating in real-time, and so on. Mastodon’s layout even cops a basic version of Tweetdeck, the popular third-party Twitter software.Creator Eugen Rochko made Mastodon as a way of improving on Twitter’s formula; the open

At Google I/O this past week, I got my first taste of the next version of Android and I enjoyed almost everything about it. Android has gotten to the stage where improvements come in only incremental steps, and Google is mostly making the right ones with its annual updates. But I have an underlying worry about where this is all going: as Android grows more proactive and assistive, I fear it might end up alienating its more technically inclined users.
So here’s a radical thought: maybe ther

It’s getting close to the time of year when Samsung usually introduces a rugged version of its latest Galaxy S smartphone. And a new leak from the Wireless Power Consortium reveals a lot about what the S8 Active is going to look like.
It’s only a single photo, but the image lets us know three key things about the S8 Active. First, the display: the S8 Active won’t have curved edges, like the regular S8.
The S8 Active has some serious corners
The big question this year was what S

Ringly is launching a new version of its smart bracelet with an updated look, all the same features, and a lower price.
The new model is called the Ringly Go, and its biggest difference is its looks. The new model puts a large stone in the middle of a leather strap, instead of a large gem in the middle of a metal bracelet like most of the original models. It’s a much more subdued look, and I think I like it more than the older design.
It’s basically just a style choice at this point

Facebook has long struggled to adequately moderate its platform for potentially violent and abusive content. And a series of recently leaked guidelines and policies of its internal monitoring practices reveals all the chaos that goes behind the company’s efforts to curb harassment. The Guardian has published a massive trove of internal documents used to train Facebook moderators how to appropriately deal with potentially offensive messages and imagery on its platf

The United Nations’ refugee agency has partnered with Google to launch a new website aimed at answering the five most common questions about the Syrian refugee crisis. The “Searching for Syria” site launched on Monday and will be featured on the Google home page “in selected countries,” according to a press release from the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR).
Searching for Syria combines data from the UNHCR and Google to answer five questions: “what was

While cheaper and increasingly popular with riders, UberPool continues to be stressful service for everyone involved. Riders are lured in by dirt-cheap prices, only to become aggravated by frequent detours to pick up new passengers. Drivers complain that UberPool often means more work without necessarily more pay. And Uber’s engineers have been wrestling with how to make the service that’s core to the company’s mission a more seamless and frictionless experience.riders are bein

The great white whale of backpacks is the one pack that fits any occasion. Buy a bag that's perfect for the daily commute and it probably won't fit all your camera gear. Buy a backpack big enough for a weekend getaway and it'll look like a deflated corpse of canvas on your way to the office. That's where the promise of modularity comes in.
What is it?Your browser does not support HTML5 video.
The Boundary Prima System is a backpack built around the idea of adaptability. It's centered around a 25

Apple has begun charging small fees for three-month trials of Apple Music in some countries, according to AppleInsider. Users in Australia, Spain, and Switzerland must now pay 99 cents to trial the streaming service for three months. Apple Music trials were previously free in each country, as they are in the US and other countries.It is not clear why Apple began charging for trials in these countries, or whether the company plans to do so in other countries. Apple initially planned to not pay ro

Microsoft is widely expected to launch a new Surface Pro device tomorrow, and the company’s Surface chief has taken to Instagram today to post what appears to be a teaser. Panos Panay simply posted an image of four Surface keyboards, with the caption that there are “30 hours to go” until Microsoft’s Surface event in Shanghai. The Surface keyboards appear to be new Type Cover colors in alcantara, the same fabric that’s used on Microsoft’s new Surface Laptop.
Mi