Technology news

Humanity breathed a collective sigh of relief today as the robot army amassing to subjugate us under its shiny metal grip revealed an all-too-familiar Achilles heel: Crippling existential dread.
Or at least that's what it looks like. 
SEE ALSO: Man attacks robot and humanity will probably pay for it one day
What else could explain the July 17 actions of a Knightscope security robot at the Washington Harbour shopping mall? Apparently fed up with the tedious nature of its assigned mall-cop ta

Amazon filed a trademark on July 6th for a service described as “We do the prep. You be the chef.” The application describes the service as akin to other meal prep services like Blue Apron, saying customers will be provided with “prepared food kits... ready for cooking.”
Last month, Amazon announced that it was acquiring supermarket chain Whole Foods for $13.7 billion. The platform has been testing grocery delivery services since launching AmazonFresh in 2007, expanding t

I hate my alarm clock. I like sleeping, and every morning, without fail, my alarm clock ruins that for me by loudly and unsubtly waking me up. Of course, that’s the whole point of an alarm clock, but there are other annoying things about my alarm, too. It’s old, it can only charge a single 30-pin iPod, and it can’t use my carefully curated collection of song snippets as alarms for shocking me awake in the morning.I hate my alarm clock
As a smart alarm clock with Amazon’s

There's an open-source project on GitHub called GaleForce which allows you to customize your Google Wifi router, as spotted by Android Police. Under the hood, Google Wifi is running a version of Chrome OS Linux. GaleForce (Google Wifi's hardware codename is "Gale") lets you run a VPN server, customize your gateway IP address, or do any other system admin sort of thing that Linux makes possible.
The bad news is you'll have to get your hands dirty. To put the router in developer mode, you'll need

The Overwatch League logo fits pretty well into the pantheon of traditional sports league logos. Major League Baseball thinks it fits a little too well. 
After Blizzard Entertainment submitted their application to trademark the Overwatch League logo — Blizzard's premiere Overwatch esports league kicking off later this year — MLB filed a request to the United States Patent and Trademark Office's Trademark Trial and Appeal Board for an extension of 90 days to oppose the trademark,

Following the death of Liu Xiaobo last week, China is apparently cracking down on anything which mentions his name on social media. Liu Xiaobo, a long-time political prisoner in China, was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2010 for “his long and non-violent struggle for fundamental human rights in China.” Liu was an outspoken advocate for human rights, and was arrested following the publication of a manifesto on the topic. He’d been in prison for eight years when he died of liv

Taylor Swift has probably traveled using almost every mode of transportation available—but a suitcase? Sorry folks, but that's (unfortunately) fake news. 
Radio station Spin 1038 published an article Monday based on paparazzi photos from Splash, a celebrity news agency, which showed two men carrying a suitcase with the caption, "Taylor Swift has been reportedly being transported in a huge suitcase from her Tribecca apartment into her truck."Image:JCNYC / Splash NewsSadly, Splash has s

When you say stupid things on the internet, there's always a chance that it could come back to haunt you.
Two days after Dutch professional soccer club PSV Eindhoven signed FIFA esports player Tony Kok to compete under its name, PSV dropped him. Never tweet.
SEE ALSO: 'Overwatch' pro goes on racist tirade on stream, destroys his own careerPSV gaat het contract met eSporter Tony Kok per direct verbreken.https://t.co/oYRRuSrxDy
— PSV (@PSV) July 16, 2017PSV announced that it broke its contra

Andre the Giant may have died almost 25 years ago, but special effects artist Trent Taft from New York City is bringing the famed wrestler back to fans in the form of a hyper realistic sculpture.
Titled simply, Andre the Giant, the sculpture is a life size bust of the wrestler, cast in silicone.Image:TRENT TAFT SEE ALSO: This giant kinetic sculpture is actually a shape-shifting human face
Andre the Giant is iconic in the world of wrestling, and is probably one of the first faces that come t

I’m sorry to inform you that perhaps some robots are taking this whole “be more human” thing a bit too far. I’ve seen people make jokes about jumping into a river or out of a window when they feel distressed, but one DC-based security robot appears to have interpreted this on a literal level.
Our D.C. office building got a security robot. It drowned itself.We were promised flying cars, instead we got suicidal robots. pic.twitter.com/rGLTAWZMjn— Bilal Farooqui (@bila

Kelly Kapoor looks like she'll be getting a tiny office assistant of her own.
E! News reports that Mindy Kaling is pregnant with her first child Monday. 
In an interview with Yahoo! Style, Kaling previously mentioned her interest in having kids. 
"I think I've decided that unlike everything else in my life, I'm going to be fast and loose about kids," the actress said in 2015. "I'm going to not actively plan, but if it happens, it would happen."
It looks like that's exactly what happene

This is why we can't have nice emoji.
Google has decided to revive its "blob" emoji in the form of a sticker pack for its messaging app Allo.
SEE ALSO: New Apple emoji include Woman With Headscarf, Breastfeeding, Zombie, and more
A quick refresher: Google revealed earlier this year that it will introduce completely redesigned emoji as part of the upcoming Android O update. The new characters look much more like the modern emoji on iOS and other platforms, as opposed to those shapeless yellow lum

The premiere of Game of Thrones’ seventh season set a series record of 10.1 million viewers tuning in to the live broadcast. Despite being off the air for three months longer than the usual one-year gap between seasons, it seems that the show has lost none of its momentum, according to The Hollywood Reporter.
10.1 million live viewers, with another 6 million on streaming services
According to HBO, “Dragonstone” beat last year’s season 6 finale (which had 8.89 million view

"Don't know how he did it."
A bull on the Weeping Fox Ranch in Hartley, Iowa, managed to get himself in a very odd predicament. Somehow, the 11-month animal got caught inside a large tractor tire that was being used as a hay ring in its enclosure.
It sorta looks like a pool floatie, so maybe the bull was just trying to go for a dip.
Luckily, the farmers managed to get the tire off the bull after just a few minutes of effort.  Read more...
More about Animals, Viral Videos, Bulls, Culture, a

If social media has you feeling like the world really sucks lately, one young star may be a ray of light in the all the darkness.
SEE ALSO: Turns out we'll get to see 'Stranger Things' Season 2 sooner than expected
Actress and too-pure-for-this-world soul, Millie Bobby Brown, tweeted today that she has created a new account to "share love and positivity." Stranger Things fans have yet another reason to love Eleven. New account sharing love and positivity! Managed by me ✌️ @Mill

If social media has you feeling like the world really sucks lately, one young star may be a ray of light in the all the darkness.
SEE ALSO: Turns out we'll get to see 'Stranger Things' Season 2 sooner than expected
Actress and too-pure-for-this-world soul, Millie Bobby Brown, tweeted today that she has created a new account to "share love and positivity." Stranger Things fans have yet another reason to love Eleven. New account sharing love and positivity! Managed by me ✌️ @Mill

Spoilers ahead for Game of Thrones season 7, episode 1Game of Thrones’ season 7 premiere has finally aired, and it picks up right where we left off, with a scene many fans have been hoping for: Arya exacting revenge for the murder of her mother, brother, and sister-in-law at the Red Wedding. The opening scene was equal parts shocking and satisfying. For a moment after the HBO logo flashed, the first scene was confusing: “Didn’t Walder Frey get his throat cut in season 6? Is thi

Netflix and 100 mil. 
The entertainment giant revealed on Monday that it now boasts 104 million subscribers. 
It's a milestone that highlights just how big Netflix has grown in the past few years. Much of the growth has come from outside of the U.S., as the company noted.
"We also crossed the symbolic milestones of 100m members and more international than domestic members. It was a good quarter," Netflix said in its investor letter.
Netflix continues to resemble an unstoppable force of

After months of rumors and speculation, the first clear image of the Nokia 8 has leaked, courtesy of VentureBeat. It looks… okay, I guess. Don’t get me wrong. Spec-wise, the device appears to to be right up there with the current flagship pantheon. Leaked benchmarks suggest t it will have a 5.3-inch QHD screen, a Snapdragon 835, and 4 or 6 GB of RAM. It also features a pair of rear cameras with Zeiss lenses and what appears to be unibody metal construction, corroborating an earlier

Back in April of this year, Netflix broke the news that it has reached 100 million subscribers. That gives it far and away the largest subscriber base of any global streaming video service. And all those paying customers have boosted Netflix’s revenue to new heights. Today the company announced that it made $2.785 billion in revenue for the second quarter of 2017. And it turned a tidy profit, reporting $66 million in net income, up about 50 percent from the same period last year.The most i

A British couple went all-in with a winter wedding theme. 
SEE ALSO: One of the largest icebergs ever recorded just broke free of Antarctica
Polar field guides Julie Baum and Tom Sylvester married over the weekend in an intimate ceremony at the British Antarctic Survey's Rothera Research Station. It's the first official wedding to take place in the British Antarctic Territory.
The historic moment occurred in 15-degree weather at a specially decorated chapel at the research station.
Looks c

Comcast filed comments in support of the FCC’s plan to kill the 2015 net neutrality rules today. And while pretty much everything in them is expected — Comcast thinks the rules are burdensome and hurt investment, yet it says it generally supports the principles of net neutrality — there’s one telling new quirk that stands out in its phrasing: Comcast now says it’s in support of a ban on “anticompetitive paid prioritization,” which is really a way of sayi

With all of the talk (and tweets) about Russian ties to the 2016 Donald Trump campaign, it was only a matter of time before someone turned the allegations into a internet prank aimed at the man in the Oval Office.
SEE ALSO: 6 weird facts about the dude who connected Trump Jr. with the Russians
The man behind popular Trump parody Twitter account @MatureTrumpTwts, known simply as "Barry," is now trolling Donald Trump with real Russian ties ... as in an Russian neckties. 
To poke fun of allega

Spoilers ahead for Game of Thrones season 7, episode 1
There are many standout sequences in Game of Thrones’ season 7 premiere, but one of the quietest takes place between Sandor “The Hound” Clegane, Thoros of Myr, and Beric Dondarrion, who rest for the night in a little cottage where the former occupants are dead and long-shriveled in the corner. It seems odd that Beric assumes he knows the genders of the mummies in front of him, given that they’re basically gray, skelet

A good dog named Storm was captured on camera rescuing a baby deer.
Mark Freeley says he was walking along the beach with dogs Storm and Sarah on Sunday when his pup jumped into the Long Island Sound to investigate an object in the water. Turns out it was a baby deer, struggling to swim. 
SEE ALSO: Baby deer rescued on the side of a busy highway will make your day"Storm is trying to save this baby deer," Freeley can be heard saying. "I think he's trying to save him." 
Freeley then enco

The Twilight Zone, Rod Serling’s landmark sci-fi anthology series about technological paranoia, creeping dread in 1960s America, and monsters and weirdos of all sorts, will be adapted as a stage play, The Hollywood Reporter confirmed this morning.
The play will debut in a limited run at London’s Almeida Theatre this December, with a script from Anne Washburn. Washburn’s best-known play is her 2012 Off-Broadway work Mr. Burns, which is about a traveling theater troupe in post-ap

Oh, Merriam-Webster, bless you and your shade.
By now, you've probably seen the announcement that British actress Jodi Whittaker will play the next Doctor in Doctor Who, making her the first woman to portray the iconic role in the long-running science fiction series.
SEE ALSO: The next 'Doctor Who' had the perfect response to people not happy about her gender
Alas, as is common in 2017, the internet trolls had to weigh in with their two cents about why having a female Doctor means the world has

Google Maps just got better at helping you avoid traffic.  Similar to Google's "popular times" feature for avoiding lines, the new update for the Google Maps Android app shows when there’s likely to be traffic to a specific destination.  
SEE ALSO: Guy fools Google and Apple Maps into naming a road after him
Now, when you search for directions, the app will show a small graph. A dashed line shows the average time the route typically takes, while the bars underneath indicate how l

Facebook denied a request made by the government of Pakistan last week to provide easy access to user identities. Pakistan officials asked Facebook to change its authentication requirements from email addresses to phone numbers, a move the social media company isn’t interested in making. The request, according to the Pakistani government, would allow the owners of ‘fake accounts’ to be tracked and dealt with – especially those that spread hate messages or blasphemy. Face

Just to let you know, if you buy something featured here, Mashable might earn an affiliate commission.
Attention all GOT fanatics: ThinkGeek is offering a special promotion during this premiere season.
Transform your home into House Stark with this merchandise. It doesn’t matter whether you’re a wannabe Dothraki warrior or just need some gear to rule the North.
From dragon egg salt and pepper shakers to an exclusive Jon Snow backpack, this offer has the most unique fan merch.
Winter

Senn Swieters showed off some impressive skills in the Dutch Championship walking bike race.
With all his opponents trailing far behind, it was almost certain the 2-year-old cyclist would secure the first place spot. However, plans changed mere inches from the finish line.
Senn knows that when he crosses that line it's all over, and he just wanted to keep riding. You truly are a winner Senn. Read more...
More about Sports, Cute Kids, Dutch, Biking, and Funny Videos

The Android blob lives! Kind of. For those not in the know, Android O is replacing Google’s classic blob emoji with more generic-looking emoji. A lot of people are not happy about that. Google is well aware, so today – in honor of World Emoji Day *sighs* – it’s bringing back the blobs in a sticker pack for the seven people that still use Allo. Of course, making the choice to abandon the blob wasn’t easy for Google either – after all, it’s the one that h

Internet lovers everywhere are honoring their favorite emoticons by celebrating World Emoji Day, and still trying to find a reason to use that file folder emoji.
Facebook observed the big day by releasing some impressive emoji usage facts, including that 60 million emoji are sent on Facebook everyday. But that's nothing compared to the average of 5 billion emoji sent every day through Messenger. Image:facebookSEE ALSO: The Empire State Building will light up 'emoji yellow' for World Emoji D

Game of Thrones has a reputation as one of the bloodiest, most brutal dramas on television, and it's well deserved. (Just ask Ned Stark's severed head.) But this show's still got a beating heart under all that battle-worn armor, and last night's episode was a perfect reminder of that.
For seasons now, the ongoing rehabilitation of Sandor Clegane has low key been one of the best subplots on Game of Thrones – and "Dragonstone" brought us one of its finest moments yet.
SEE ALSO: 'Game of Thro

Bizarre radio signals seem to be coming from a small red star about 11 light-years from Earth, and astronomers aren’t exactly sure what’s causing them.The signals were first picked up in May by scientists at the Arecibo Observatory in Puerto Rico. The astronomers there were observing red dwarfs — small, cool stars that are usually about half the mass of our Sun — when they picked up some unique radio waves coming from a part of the sky where a star named Ross 128 is locat

There’s a very divisive split in how people feel about the Google-designed blob emoji that have long been standard in Android and Gchat (RIP). But soon they’re going away. With Android O, Google will be making the switch to a set of emoji that’s more universal and similar in appearance to what you’d see on an iPhone or Android phones from other companies. Google claims the new emoji are “designed for more consistent communication.” I like them, but others feel

Pioneer has issued a new software update for its Rayz Lighting headphones, which adds support for Apple’s always-listening “Hey Siri” voice control prompt, along with several other minor fixes.This isn’t the first time that Pioneer has updated the Rayz, either. Earlier this summer, the company added a new Smart Mute feature that automatically silences your side of the call when you’re not talking when using the headphones for phone conversations.
Pioneer continues t

We were all embarrassed when our moms got on Facebook, but slowly by surely, they seem to be getting better at it than us. Well, at least one is.
On Twitter, user Eleanor Davis posted screenshots of her mother pranking her friends, and captioned the post "My mom is extremely good at Facebook."
SEE ALSO: Mom's dog identification fail may be the funniest tweet of 2017
Davis' mother posted a picture of an oil painting she said she bought that had a famous artist's signature hidden under the frame.