Technology news

Change.org is getting some major support from tech billionaires to create real social movements. 
LinkedIn co-founder Reid Hoffman is leading a $30 million funding round for the site in what he said in a post on LinkedIn was his largest personal impact investment to date. 
Bill Gates and Y Combinator's Sam Altman are also investing in Change.org in this round, Change.org CEO Ben Rattray said in a blog post. 
"As a society, we should be doing everything we can to build powerful, ea

Bonnie Kalanick, the mother of Uber CEO Travis Kalanick, died Friday evening in a boating accident outside Fresno, Calif. Donald Kalanick, Travis’s father, suffered “moderate injuries” as a result of the accident, and is currently hospitalized in Fresno, according to a report by the Fresno County Sheriff’s Office.
The Sheriff’s Office received a report of the accident slightly before 5 p.m. Friday. Deputies with the office’s boating enforcement unit alrea

GUEST: I just spent four days at two of the most important conferences in the emerging blockchain/crypto-currency space.
One was Consensus. The other Token Summit.
I had about 100 conversations with people who are at the epicenter of the blockchain wave, including one of the approximately 35 people in the world who make up the Bitcoin Core team that’s responsible for the protocol’s upkeep.
It’s going to take a few weeks or months to totally get my head around all this, but here

 We’ve received word from Uber that the Kalanick family suffered a tragic event this weekend. CEO Travis Kalanick’s parents were in a boating accident in Fresno yesterday and his mother Bonnie Horowitz Kalanick has passed away. His father Donald Kalanick was also injured. The company provided the following statement. “Last night Travis and his family suffered an… Read More

Internet star and maker Colin Furze has built all sorts of crazy inventions for his YouTube channel, ranging from a working hoverbike to a homemade Iron Man suit built to withstand a barrage of fireworks. In his latest video, he’s turned his microwave into a playable game console.His new invention is the Play-o-Wave, a fully-functional microwave with a screen mounted on it. He built a screen into the door, and included a set of inputs for a handheld controller in the body. He proceeded to

Imagine that you're standing on an alien world, far out in the galaxy. You look up and see a brilliant bed of stars above you, blanketing totally foreign sky. 
But what if you were on a different planet a little closer to home? What would you see then?
A new photo beamed back from Jupiter by NASA's Juno probe, gives us a good idea of what that could be like.
SEE ALSO: Jupiter is the gigantic, stormy hellscape we always feared
The new Juno image gives us our first view of what it's like to l

Theme park attractions don’t normally require real suspension of disbelief. You strap into a vehicle, get swung around a bit, and then you’re off and running to the next line. But when you’re dealing with an entire immersive world, like Disney’s new Pandora: The World of Avatar, that dynamic changes. There has to be a narrative behind the ride, an in-world reason for people to line up when they’ve ostensibly traveled to an alien world known for its lush, exotic land

It turns out that dogs (of course) know that fidget spinners are the work of the devil, and one brave Shiba Inu had no problem making her feelings known in a video posted on Instagram this week. 
SEE ALSO: Shiba Inu Cashier Wants to Sell You Much Magazines
Nothing odd happens here other than the mere spinning of the popular time-wasting gadget, but Kiba the Shiba isn't fooled and emphatically calls out the unnatural movements of the seemingly innocent device. #kibatheshiba loves #fidge

Ride-share companies Lyft and Uber plan to resume their operations in Austin, Texas, on Monday, more than a year after both companies pulled out of the city following the rejection of a measure that would have restrictions on the ride-share companies in the city.The return for both companies follows the passage of HB100 by the Texas legislature, which Governor Greg Abbott is expected to sign on Monday. The bill stipulates that the ability to regulate ride-share companies is controlled by the sta

Bottles of Coke could get Romanians into concerts this summer.
The soda giant is printing detachable labels that double as festival wristbands to some of the country's biggest musical events. 
SEE ALSO: Why Warren Buffett is the new face of Coca-Cola in China
Not every bottle is a winner; drinkers have to use a special app to determine whether or not their package is a real ticket.
But the company is hoping that the eight quirky designs it's rolling out will make teens want to wear them reg

London isn't totally sold on Uber. 
The city's transportation authority, Transport for London, renewed Uber's license Friday — but only for four months. 
Uber's current 5-year license, which it won in 2012, expires May 30. 
Uber wants another five-year agreement — not a measly four-month extension. And Uber's opponents aren't thrilled about the short-term approval either. 
“Uber has still not answered questions that TfL asked months ago. We say they are eith

Gazillion Entertainment is a company that came back from the dead. It was shedding employees a few years ago, and now it’s celebrating the recent debut of its massively multiplayer online game Marvel Heroes Omega on the PlayStation 4. Soon it will debut on the Xbox One.
The company’s new leadership refers to this era as Gazillion 2.0, where it had to reboot not only its biggest game but also the whole company. And early results from the beta test look good.
“The word of mo

The conspiracy theory around murdered Democratic National Committee staffer Seth Rich isn’t weird so much as sad: it drags a man’s fairly recent death into the spotlight in order to promote the idea of a “deep state” plot, based on evidence that’s either speculative or factually wrong. But it’s brought together a strange coalition of well-known subscribers — including the internet entrepreneur Kim Dotcom.
Dotcom, founder of defunct cloud storage site Meg

All the pieces of Snap's grand plan are coming together, the latest of which appears to be putting its camera technology atop drones. 
SEE ALSO: Snapchat blew its first-ever earnings
At least that's the obvious conclusion based on Snap's acquisition of Ctrl Me Robotics for "under $1 million," a deal that was first reported by Buzzfeed on Friday. Snap has not commented on the deal or the acquisition price.  
Although the report calls the Venice Beach-based company a drone manufacturer,

Late last year, Snap acquired LA-based drone company Ctrl Me Robotics, according to Buzzfeed. Recent reports indicate that the maker of Snapchat and Spectacles intends to develop a drone of its own as it looks to push beyond developing apps and into hardware.
Snap reportedly acquired Ctrl Me Robotics for less than a million dollars last last year, in a deal that included some of the company’s equipment and assets, as well as its founder, Simon Nielsen. Ctrl Me Robotics described itself as

The Golden State Warriors are unbeatable right now. Literally. 
The team America loves to hate has been perfect in the NBA Playoffs, racking up a 12-0 record through the first three rounds in barnstorming its way to a third consecutive NBA Finals. 
All this despite one of Golden State's vaunted superstars, Klay Thompson, slumping his way through the entire post-season. But it's possible that Thompson, wittingly or not, traded his on-court talents for something more powerfulMuch more po

From the beginning, Snapchat has never been a particularly intuitive app to use. And now, five years in, with the addition of more and more new features and several redesigns, using the ephemeral messaging app can still be confusing if you don’t already know where everything is and what it does. Fortunately, I’ve spent hours puzzling through the labyrinthine digital corridors that make up Snapchat, and I can teach you the tricks.Why use Snapchat?
Like it or not, Snapchat is one of th

President Barack Obama moved on from his picture-perfect vacation in Italy for basically the next-best thing: hanging out with Prince Harry. 
The president met up with future Mr. Meghan Markle at Kensington Palace in London on Saturday, the palace shared on Twitter and Instagram. Prince Harry hosted former US President @BarackObama at Kensington Palace todaypic.twitter.com/9SWfSRY4FH
— Kensington Palace (@KensingtonRoyal) May 27, 2017
Good to see my friend Prince Harry in London

We see your glitter tears and barbed wire eyebrows, but if you really want to take beauty into the future, you'll at least consider these LED eyelashes. 
SEE ALSO: Anonymous found photos explore a century of hairstyles
Dubbed F.Lashes, the illuminated eyelashes appear to change display animations depending on how you tilt your head or move your body. 
The LED eyelashes will come in pink, red, blue, light blue, white, yellow, green, and can be applied using normal eyelash glue, no elabo

Artificial intelligence is advancing fast and it is leading to strange bedfellows. One case is the interplay between AImotive, a maker of self-driving car software for real-world autonomous cars, and Slightly Mad Studios, the London-based maker of the Project Cars video game and the upcoming Project Cars 2.
AImotive found that it needed to test its self-driving car software in cars on the road, but that wasn’t really easy to do, given regulatory restrictions on where such cars can be drive

A while back, I chronicled the experience building and enjoying my first PC. I bought and assembled the parts, downloaded Steam, and became obsessed with the many features I had never experienced on consoles. After that piece wrapped, one particular tool continued to stand out: the screen capture.Today, capturing what’s on your screen is as simple as tapping a button on a PlayStation 4 or Xbox One controller — even Nintendo has dedicated screencap button on the Switch. But when I beg

Last October, the European Space Agency’s ExoMars mission lost contact with its Schiaparelli lander as it attempted to land on Mars. As the agency began to investigate, it suspected that a computer problem or bad navigational data was to blame. Now, an independent investigation has issued its final report, confirming that software problems caused the capsule to crash, and provided recommendations for the 2020 ExoMars mission.
The report highlights reveals a timeline for the crash, noting t

 Gunderson Dettmer is the law firm a good majority of tech startups turn to in the Valley for fundings, mergers, licensing and other deals and it’s been in the business of offering tech companies everyday legal advice to everyone from Oracle to DoorDash since the dot-com boom. It was ranked the “most active law firm globally” in PitchBook’s recently-released… Read More

At some point between late 2015 and early 2016, the ubiquitous cold-shoulder top took hold of fast fashion and has since refused to let go. You know the ones — those dumb, otherwise long-sleeved shirts with holes inexplicably cut from the shoulder. True to name, they make your shoulders cold and your life just a little bit worse. 
Now another another unforgivable trend is creeping its way into fast fashion stores across America. 
The style: Deconstructed shirting. 
The look:

Between Arrival and the trailers for Blade Runner 2049, Denis Villeneuve is looking like one of the hottest directors right now. He also got a lot of attention for Sicario back in 2015. I missed it then, thinking it looked like a rote action film, but I decided to watch it the other weekend to get a better sense of what Villeneuve's been up to.
There are some really gorgeous shots in the movie. But the thing that stands out to me most about Sicario is just how dramatically different it is from A

There are Terminator movie fans and then there are beautiful maniacs like this guy who recreated the entire Terminator 2 movie using Grand Theft Auto V. 
We already know that the GTA modding community is incredibly creative, but the dedication and attention to detail required by this project is mind blowing. Just about everything is there: the motorcycle chase, the flashback scenes to the robot resistance led by John Connor, the Terminator's nude time travel arrival, and even the liquid me

There’s a pervasive idea out there that life and creativity are a zero-sum game. Indulge one, destroy the other. Or, as designer Stefan Sagmeister once wrote in a mural of coins across a plaza in Amsterdam: “Obsessions make my life worse and my work better.” But as anyone who has ever experienced it knows, there comes a point when obsession makes your work worse too. Burnout can be creatively lethal. As Sagmeister explains in his TED talk, “The Power of Time Off”:

Stack up all the hard drives and flash sticks you want, but online storage space is still a premium commodity. Without some regular attention to storage room on your phone, tablet or laptop, you’ll likely to find stuff clogging up your device. Rather than slow your tech to a crawl, just start sorting through all the stockpiled videos, images, documents and other low-priority digital content and push it to your 1TB of cloud space from Zoolz Dual Cloud Storage (now just $29 from TNW Deals).

President Trump wants to voice his opinions on the Middle East and no, not through some archaic Washington-insider liberal elitist speech.
The man wants to communicate his worldview the best way he knows how — by yelling on the internet. Returning from his trip in the Middle East, the president has graciously left behind his TripAdvisor reviews for each and every country he visited. Trump got the travel bug! 
SEE ALSO: Overpriced garbage from Trump's estate we could sell to offset his

Up until 2016, the Rose emoji only had two days in the sun: Mothers' Day and Valentines' Day.
Since before the election of 2016, however, rose emoji began popping up in droves on social media, not as aesthetic, but as symbols.
Placed next to usernames and in bios, the rose emoji signals more than an undying love for American Beauty: it indicates membership in the Democratic Socialists of America. 
SEE ALSO: President Obama uses courage award speech to reframe the healthcare debate
The DSA,

GUEST: As esports at all levels continues to earn mainstream credibility, one segment is poised for explosive growth – collegiate esports. How colleges and universities will manage esports is an important question.
Esports has the potential to be a significant revenue generator at the collegiate level, it on par with money-making college sports like football and basketball. The current path of collegiate esports, however, puts it in the Wild West — no regulation, rules

While not as major as Black Friday, Memorial Day is known for its great sales, and many online retailers are having notable ones to mark the occasion. Below, we’ve rounded up the tech sales worth checking out during your long weekend, including three of our favorite deals.
Our favorites
Amazon has Anker’s popular PowerPort 10 at its lowest price ever of $28 with promo code BEST2133. We’re unclear when the code expires and recommend acting fast if you need one of these. (And if

When Microsoft unveiled its digital assistant in 2014, it looked to the Halo franchise for inspiration, naming its system Cortana, after Master Chief’s AI companion. One ambitious fan has gone a step further and created his own holographic version of the assistant for his home.Jarem Archer, who goes by untitled network on YouTube, demonstrates the build in the video by asking Corana if he’ll need an umbrella that day. The Halo AI appears in the pyramid-shaped device, and appears to c

Technology isn't going so well for British Airways. 
The airline suffered a major IT outage on Saturday and canceled all its flights leaving from London's Heathrow and Gatwick airports before 6 p.m. local time. Outside of London, British Airways passengers faced extreme delays and were stuck on the tarmac for hours. 
"The terminals at Heathrow and Gatwick have become extremely congested and we have cancelled all flights from Heathrow and Gatwick before 6pm UK time today, so please do n

Canadian researchers have discovered a new species of meat-eating sponge in the North Atlantic Ocean. Don’t worry, though, it doesn’t eat human meat — it feeds on zooplankton, tiny animals that drift in sea water. (With those fish bone-looking spikes, though, it sure looks like a creature from hell.)Photo: Fisheries and Oceans CanadaCladorhiza kenchingtonae is about 6.5 feet long.The carnivorous sponge, named Cladorhiza kenchingtonae after Canadian research scientist Ellen Kenc

A “major IT system failure” is causing British Airways some headaches today. The airline reports that the computer issues are causing problems worldwide, and that flights out of London’s Heathrow and Gatwick airports have been canceled.The airline is advising passengers to avoid going to the airport if they have a flight schedule before 6PM, to mitigate already crowded terminals, and that it’s unable to rebook passengers to other flights at this time. The problems don&rsq

There’s travel chaos this bank holiday weekend, after British Airways canceled hundreds of flights as a result of a major IT systems outage. The issue, which the airline has described as a “major IT system failure” and a “global system outage, has caused “severe disruption” to British Airways’ worldwide operations. Passengers are unable to check in, and parts of the British Airways website is down. Hundreds of passengers are also sat on the tarmac, as o