Technology news

GUEST: Figure this one out: Just shy of 100 percent of U.S.-based privacy professionals believe the importance and complexity of managing privacy in their organizations is increasing.
Similar numbers (97 percent!) acknowledge they will increase their investment in managing privacy. Yet fully 61 percent of these same professionals acknowledge they have done little to prepare for the coming of the world’s biggest privacy regulation, the EU’s General Data Protection Regulation, or GDPR.

The next season of Westworld is still a long ways away, but that doesn't mean the cast isn't hard at work putting together the next installment of robots vs. humans drama. 
SEE ALSO: Snapchat is adding more big-name TV channels, including HBO
We got our first sort-of-peek at Westworld Season 2 on Friday thanks to show regular James Marsden. The actor, who plays one of the pivotal robot characters on Westworld, took to Instagram to show off some of his gunslinging skills. Westworld quic

Before the Senate votes on its bill to repeal the Affordable Care Act, many people are sharing stories of how the bill would affect them. 
One story struck a chord with thousands of Twitter users this weekend. The mom of 3-year-old Ethan Vikash shared a photo of a medical bill for her son's open heart surgery. The 24-line item bill came to $231,115 for 10 hours in surgery, one week in the hospital's cardiac intensive care unit, and one week on the hospital's cardiac floor. 
With insura

You'll have to wait a little longer for your robot Donald Trump.
New reports coming out of the most magical place on earth claim that Disney World's Hall of Presidents won't be showing off its 45th robot President any time soon.
The venerable hall, which has been closed for renovations since shortly before Trump took office in January, was originally scheduled to reopen on June 30th. 
SEE ALSO: GOP staffer compares Trumpcare to Star Wars and we can't even
Originally opened in 1971 as part o

ANALYSIS: From connected ovens to smart beds, the burgeoning “internet of random things” (IoRT™) industry is showing no signs of easing. Earlier this week, Ring — funded to the tune of $209 million — announced a new version of its connected video doorbell. One day later, Samsung reminded us exactly how bizarre the smart home is becoming, when it announced that the next generation of its Family Hub connected refrigerators are now on sale in the U.S.
While internet-en

After this week, Uber is forever changed. Co-founder Travis Kalanick was forced to resign as CEO after pressure from investors over recent scandals.
Those scandals? Where to begin: There are the allegations of sexual harassment and HR incompetence from Susan Fowler Rigetti. There's the ongoing lawsuit from Alphabet's Waymo that alleges Uber benefited from intellectual property that the now-fired head of self-driving may have stolen. There's the Greyball program that the company used to evade re

You just won your second NBA championship, so now it's time to go pay respects to your shoe sponsor in China aaaand… embarrass yourself, the NBA, and said shoe sponsor, in epic fashion. 
SEE ALSO: LeBron James and Draymond Green are in the best Instagram flame war
On Saturday, a tragic video of Golden State Warriors star Klay Thompson began making the rounds on social media and it will live in basketball infamy. At least one of the videos appear to be from China's Weibo, and it shows

GUEST: The initial head-scratching phase over the Amazon-Whole Foods deal is giving way to some aha moments as commentators absorb the idea of a mostly online retailer buying something as tangible and localized as an organic grocery chain. They’re pointing out that Amazon will be acquiring a first-class logistics operation, a global distribution hub for its own grocery delivery business, and the opportunity to sell to a broader range of high-income customers.
But much of the commentary so

A sincere question: is there anything women are allowed to wear in the summer?
The latest example of a ludicrous "dress code violation" comes from Tennessee, where 20-year-old Tori Jenkins was allegedly asked to leave the pool at her own apartment complex for wearing the below swimsuit.
SEE ALSO: Woman kicked out of a mall for wearing what women wear in warm months
(Yes, it is just a high-leg one piece.)In a Facebook post on Tuesday, Jenkins's fiance, Tyler Newman, wrote that a leasing consultan

2017 is shaping up to be a big year for Sonic. Later this year, we will see the launch of two new games starring the iconic Sega character, including both the old-school Sonic Mania, and the more modern (and 3D!) Sonic Forces. With all of this going on, you may well be in the mood for a Sonic fix right now. Well, there’s good news: this week, video game music collective Overclocked Remix released a fantastic celebration of the series’s long musical history.Called Speeding Towards Adv

Everyone's best friend, Mark Zuckerberg, has a new Facebook story and he's having a great time in Iowa. 
Zuckerberg used Facebook stories—that product Facebook introduced to add onto Instagram Stories but that hasn't quite caught on yet—to document his trip midwest. The Facebook CEO traveled to Iowa as part of his 2017 promise to visit U.S. states he's never been to. 
That trip led Zuckerberg to declare, "Iowa is my kind of place." Everyone on Facebook who follows Zuckerber

Just ahead of Microsoft’s media event prior to E3 (the Electronic Entertainment Expo trade show) last week the company filed a trademark for Direct Reality. Given the company’s penchant for relabelling virtual reality as mixed reality, we had hoped that would mean VR would make an appearance at its showcase. That wasn’t the case, but do now know what Direct Reality really is.
Xbox head Phil Spencer outlined exactly what this trademark pertained to during an interview with 

Discover card shoppers can finally use their credit card with Samsung Pay on their phones, two years after the credit card company announced that the card would come to the system.A customer service representative for Discover confirmed that customers can now add their cards to Samsung Pay. Samsung unveiled its mobile payment system in 2015, and Discover announced at the time that support for the card would come in early 2016. However, that functionality was delayed until now, prompting some com

There's a limit to the level of Star Wars fan obsession we can accept before we are forced to question whether or not you're missing a few midi-chlorians. 
Such is the case with the latest piece of Star Wars fan swag that comes to us in the form of a gold, diamond encrusted pendant currently up for auction online. 
SEE ALSO: Netflix finally gets its first live-action 'Star Wars' film
Heritage Auctions, the site offering the piece for sale, is looking for up to $3,500 for the sci-fi bli

Nevada Sen. Dean Heller became the first Republican on Friday to say he wouldn't vote for the Senate's bill to repeal the Affordable Care Act because of its cuts to healthcare benefits for low-income Americans. 
Naturally, a conservative, pro-Trump interest group is lobbying the senator to change his mind about the GOP effort to replace Obamacare. One of them promoted a trending hashtag on Twitter: "HellerVoteYes." 
Well, since the Republicans' bill would eliminate most health services

In Donut County, the starring role is a hole. I realize how ridiculous that sounds, but this is a pretty quirky game. I played it at the recent Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3), and it was surprisingly fun. All you do is move a hole around a landscape, making things fall into it. The more things fall into it, the bigger the hole gets.
It comes from the mind of Ben Esposito, a Los Angeles game developer who came up with the idea as a kind of joke. Once he started building the game, he realized

Apple's massive new spaceship campus, officially called "Apple Park," is nearly complete and should officially open later this year. New drone footage reveals how glorious the main campus and the Steve Jobs Theater look just as the sun is setting.
The new 2.8 million-square-foot headquarters will be home to over 12,000 Apple employees. It's Apple Chief Design Officer Jony Ive's most ambitious "product" to date, huge glass panels, toilets inspired by iPhones, patented pizza boxes that prevent pi

The British Parliament has been hit by a “sustained and determined” cyberattack attack, according to The Telegraph, which has left lawmakers unable to remotely access their e-mail.Authorities discovered unusual activity on the computer networks this morning, and have moved to take steps to protect them, which appears to include preventing access outside of the Palace of Westminster. In an e-mail to Members of Parliament, parliamentary authorities say that they have “confirmed t

The big difference between Preacher the television show and Preacher the comic is that on the television show, the protagonist doesn't walk with God.Admittedly, that isn’t the only change. The television series, which launched in 2016, kept the characters and some of the conceptual elements from Garth Ennis and Steve Dillon’s comics series, but everything else in the first season is swapped around. The second season, which launches on AMC on Sunday, June 25th, is the point where it b

 Tumblr this week introduced a “safe mode” for its service, which combines the company’s previously available “safe search” functionality with a new filter that would hide “sensitive” content from the site’s main Dashboard, using an overlay. However, Tumblr quickly came under fire for hiding “sensitive” content that was anything but… Read More

To be a female celebrity means that you cannot even Instagram your perfect abs without being attacked by trolls. Luckily, Jennifer Lopez knows how to keep the peace.
Because the internet is both a wonderful and a terrible place, J.Lo's delightful Instagram mirror selfie was instantly met with comments accusing her of Photoshopping the image.
SEE ALSO: Remember George Clooney's tequila company? He just sold it for $1 billion
Most detractors focused on the little smudge on the right side of the ph

One of the biggest stories of 2017 for the VR industry is also one of its longest. The year started out with ZeniMax Media taking Facebook-owned Oculus to court over an alleged theft of technology. A jury eventually ruled that Oculus must pay ZeniMax $500 million, but that wasn’t the end of things — ZeniMax wants more.
Shortly after the trial, we learned that the company, which owns The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim publisher Bethesda, filed an injunction for the Rift to be removed from sa

Think you've had enough of @realDonaldTrump? Try stepping into your living room and having a live feed of the president's hotly debated tweets on your wall. No need to turn on the news, no need to open your Twitter app — or any other form of social media. All you have to do is look at your wall.  
SEE ALSO: Trump Twitter bot reminds us that all his tweets are coming from the White House
Sound appealing? Well, maybe not. But for one man from Sweden, it's a long-term project that's fina

Every summer, when the sun is hot and everyone is drowning in sweat, barbecue invitations go out. While these get-togethers create the perfect setting to catch up with old friends, befriend your neighbors, and meet new people, they also highlight how important it is to have all the best gear. That way you can impress everyone with how you've married 21st century technology with the time-honored tradition of cooking hot dogs and hamburgers in 95-degree weather.
Whether you get stuck with grill du

As a rule, social networks are terrible at understanding their human users — no matter the ooey-gooey platitudes about bringing us "closer together" their executives piece together. 
Never has this been more clear than over the past few days, when Instagram's algorithm continually shoved well-meaning but emotionally ruinous "happy Father's Day!" garbage down my throat.
SEE ALSO: In praise of Justin Bieber's eccentric Instagrams
Quick background: A brain tumor put my dad six feet under

Nike's SNKRS app will soon move shopping for sneakers on the app partly into the real world. 
The app is adding augmented reality technology for the drop of the Nike SB Dunk High Pro "Momofuku." 
App users have to find a copy of the menu for the New York restaurant Fuku, part of David Chang's Momofuku empire, online or even on the street in New York. Then, SNKRS will overlay an interactive 3D model of the limited-edition sneakers. Tapping to unlock will reveal the new sneaker and invit

The first season of American Gods ended with a bang earlier this week, leaving us with a long wait until we get to see just what happens next for Shadow, Wednesday, and the others. However, like The Handmaid’s Tale, the show is based on a novel, and there’s a number of others about similar things: gods and magic.
Here are eight stories that you should check out while you wait for the show to return. Image: William Morrow
Anansi Boys by Neil Gaiman
The logical place to start with this

Most undead games try to hook you with the number of zombies you can shoot in a minute. But Microsoft’s upcoming State of Decay 2 is different. It fully simulates the world and makes you worry about whether your community has stolen enough Twinkies from the local supermarket.
I got a demo of the game at the Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3), the big game event in Los Angeles last week. Jeff Strain, founder of Seattle-based developer Undead Labs, and Richard Foge, design director, led a ha

Despite the general vibe of a trip to Sephora, good skincare products do not need to be expensive. In fact, your office bathroom might already have them ... just above the place dozens of people poop!
Yes, wax paper toilet seat covers currently have a score of 4.6/5 on the "Misc Beauty Tools" section of MakeupAlley, the mother of all beauty review websites. Why? People use them as blotting papers for oily skin — and love them. 
If your office is blessed with toilet seat covers (despit

This week we already mentioned several big sales, including another T-Mobile BOGO deal for the Samsung Galaxy S8 and Steam’s annual summer sale on popular (and sometimes not-so-popular) PC gaming titles. But we’ve also got some new deals to tell you about, the most noteworthy being eBay’s $125 discount on Samsung’s unlocked S8 and S8 plus, which is already only available at limited quantities. (So, you might want to act fast if you want one.)
Also! A reminder that you hav

It’s a bold vision: 50,000 new American jobs to be created by a series of investments from Softbank Capital. And with the investments coming from a $100 billion fund, that jobs number feels like a sure thing. What’s not certain, however, is where those jobs will be located.
“We don’t mind where the companies are,” Ron Fisher, SoftBank Capital’s cofounder and managing partner, told  CNBC’s Jon Fortt last week. The two were in conversation at&nbs

This is Boomer. No, not Michael Phelps' adorable baby Boomer, but Boomer, the Bengali cat who skateboards.
Yes, this cat skateboards. And skateboards really well. Boomer's probably better at skateboarding than most people. He's also most definitely more talented than most cats, whose skills mostly consist of eating, sleeping, and playing games on iPad. 
Just look at how cool and collected Boomer is while he skates through a semi-crowded street. Observe his kicking technique, leaving one fr

The 2017 World's Ugliest Dog winner is perhaps the floppiest yet.
Martha, a three-year-old 125-pound Neapolitan Mastiff from Sebastopol, California, took the top prize at the Petaluma competition on Friday. Martha will triumphantly return home with $1,500, a trophy, and a free trip to New York City for media appearances.
SEE ALSO: Dogs, ranked
And she seems absolutely thrilled.Image:M. DAVEY/EPA/REX/ShutterstockMartha reportedly won over the judges the way we'd all like to — by lying down

The last two movies I saw were Magic Mike XXL and The Invitation. The former is a tale of male strippers, friendship, and the danceability of “Pony,” while the latter is a terrifying, suspense-driven look at a (fictional) Los Angeles cult.Where am I going with this? I have no idea, but Jake usually writes about the most recent movies he’s seen in this intro. I guess what these movies say about modern cinema is that there really are a lot of options if you ignore superhero movie