Technology news

Everyone's pumped for the music video for Taylor Swift's new single, "Look What You Made Me Do," to arrive. 
Especially everyone on the internet who...has already noticed how much the teaser shots look like the video for Beyonce's "Formation": "My daddy Pennsylvania,
momma from Pennsylvania,
You mix that Pennsyl with a Vania I am from Pennylvaniaaaa" pic.twitter.com/uJZ2K9fJX7
— Marcia Belsky (@MarciaBelsky) August 25, 2017As memes writing Swift's own version of Lemonade made eve

Part of the fun of Stranger Things is looking for how many retro takes the show gets spot-on. Now the show's exercise in pop culture symbology offers yet another take—this time, on old-school movie posters that used to adorn the bedrooms of the '80s kids the show depicts. 
SEE ALSO: The 5 most expensive TV shows Netflix has made (so far)
Tweeted from the Netflix show's official account on Saturday, we get a look at 12 different characters featured in their own, blood-red-tinged poster

With US digital ad spending set to reach $83 billion in 2017, an increase of 16 percent, the ROI for advertisers is threatened by fake clicks and views. Everyone in the ad ecosystem is affected, regardless of location. Ad Fraud is a global epidemic, crippling ad budgets and destroying trust in digital advertising.   One suggested tactic has been to demand that traffic have a seal of approval from organizations that fight fraud, like the Trustworthy Accountability Group (TAG) , th

A report from cybersecurity company Proofpoint says that it’s observed a “targeted email campaign” that is using details of leaked Game of Thrones episodes to try and spread malware to unsuspecting users.The company first came across an e-mail on August 10th with the subject line "Wanna see the Game of Thrones in advance?" The emails contained some general details of upcoming episodes, as well as a Microsoft Word attachment with malware hidden in it. Once downloaded, it would a

Please enjoy the best thing to ever happen on Fox News.
Reporter Casey Stegall received a surprise treat during his extremely wet coverage of Hurricane Harvey on Friday—a six-pack of local beer from a scene-stealing local.
SEE ALSO: Astronauts flew right over monster storm Hurricane Harvey
In the clip, which was later tweeted by Fox News, Stegall is mid-sentence when a woman darts into the frame. "Brought you guys some Galveston beer!" she says (well, shouts).
"Well, thank you. That will b

A new interpretation into the nature of an ancient clay tablet known as Plimpton 322 claims that ancient Babylonians might have developed an advanced form of trigonometry — long before Greek mathematicians are commonly believed to have invented the concept.
That’s the theory put forward by two mathematicians from the University of New South Wales, Daniel F. Mansfield and Norman Wildberger, who published their study in the latest issue of Historia Mathematica. They claim that the tabl

It's National Dog Day, a fake holiday we accept without question because it allows us to talk about our own dogs just a little bit more. 
And as it turns out, not even celebrities (gasp!) are immune from the impulse to talk about their own furry friends, which is why they're posting cute odes to them online, just like the rest of us.
SEE ALSO: Man seriously regrets saying not all dogs are good dogs
Here are a few of the cutest—as if we could rank such a thing. 12/10 to all.Happy #Nati

GUEST: There is a classic video of Steve Ballmer at a Microsoft company meeting going absolutely crazy, covered in sweat, screaming “Developers! Developers! Developers!”
Many will say Ballmer did not do much right while he was CEO, but he did understand one thing: A platform is only a platform if other people leverage it.
As the blockchain revolution kicks into high gear, a new war for developers is underway among the builders of decentralized technologies.
In its August update, Tezo

Friday was Blake Lively's thirtieth birthday, so her husband, Ryan Reynolds, tweeted a lovely photo in her honor.
Yes: Blake Lively looks so good here. Stunning, really. And there's about a 30% chance Facebook would recognize her as a human.
SEE ALSO: Ryan Reynolds invited Salma Hayek over for dinner, and somehow she got stuck doing all the workHappy Birthday to my amazing wifepic.twitter.com/7vulMXqOdp
— Ryan Reynolds (@VancityReynolds) August 26, 2017Mr. Reynolds, we don't do this lightl

We knew Beyoncé and Jay-Z had named their twins Sir and Rumi—when they trademarked the names. 
And now, we know why they chose them. In an interview on the Rap Radar podcast Friday, as highlighted by Vulture, Jay-Z finally revealed the reasons behind the choice. 
“Rumi is our favorite poet, so it was for our daughter,” Jay-Z said. That would be in honor of Rumi, the 13th-century Persian poet. 
“Sir was like, man, come out the gate. He carries himself

The Call of Duty: WWII private beta is under way, and I’ve been playing for a few hours. That means I’m a veteran at this game, at least as much as anyone else is.
I’ve leveled up to rank 10, mostly by playing matches where I get one kill for every three deaths. That’s about normal for me as far as a kill/death ratio goes. During my play, I’ve fought almost exclusively in the Team Deathmatch battles on Pointe Du Hoc, Ardennes, and the newly announced map, Gibraltar.

Long before Taylor Swift was the subject of serious ire and scrutiny, she was interested in laying out puzzles and being the sole keeper of the key.Her album liner notes have always had hidden clues, as complicated as a Zodiac cypher, put there obviously enough for fans to figure out but never quite so obviously as to be confirmable. She’s known for naming names, but more often than not she has actually let fans do that last bit of work for her. On her 2012 album Red, she even didn’t

 Two former Googlers are guaranteeing workers in the tech industry that they get interviews with their dreamer employers thanks to artificial intelligence.
The past year or so has seen AI deployed to tackle a broad range of issues, and with their startup Leap.ai, ex-Google engineers Richard Liu and Yunkai Zhou believe it can be used to crack the hiring conundrum in tech.
As things stand now… Read More

When the robot apocalypse comes, robots will be there to say a prayer over your frail human remains, thanks to Japan's Softbank. 
SEE ALSO: Elon Musk and 115 other experts ask the UN to ban killer robots in open letter
That's the message from this week's Tokyo Int'l Funeral & Cemetery Show, where Softbank's Pepper robot demonstrated its ability to perform Buddhist funeral rites. 
Draped in traditional Japanese funeral garb, Pepper not only presided over a faux death ceremony, it al

GUEST: Brazil’s been in the news lately, and not always for the most positive reasons. Amidst news of recession, resulting austerity measures, and a successive series of large-scale corruption scandals, the developments from this previously booming emerging market seem grim.
But as an emerging-markets expert, I’ve been watching Brazil very closely, and it’s clear there is a bright spot in all this doom-and-gloom coverage. Brazilian cities consistently make top 10 lists for digi

Spoilers ahead for season one of The Mist.
On August 24, The Mist’s season-one finale aired on Spike. On the 25th, Netflix released the series for streaming in select countries outside the United States. (A Netflix spokesman said the company doesn’t provide “comprehensive lists of which shows are available in which countries,” so viewers outside the U.S. will have to check their local account to see if it’s there.) The television series adapts Stephen King’s 1

Multiplayer combat in Call of Duty games has never been that social. You shoot the other players, or perhaps insult them in voice chat, and move on to the next game. But with Call of Duty: WWII, developer Sledgehammer Games designed the experience to be more social and memorable.
Publisher Activision and Sledgehammer showcased the Headquarters hub of WWII this week to show what it means. The Headquarters hub enables 48 players to gather in a group that spans more than just a single clan. It&rsqu

I was pretty sucked in by Christine’s tailer when it hit last year, and now that the film is on Netflix, I finally got around to checking it out. It’s a really great movie — and Rebecca Hall’s performance is just amazing — but the weird thing is, part of me wishes it hadn’t been confined to reality.
The movie tells the story of the real life news anchor Christine Chubbuck, who shot herself on air. It follows her struggles at work and with depression, and it ul

In James Patrick Kelly’s new novel Mother Go, a young woman makes her way across the solar system, trying to flesh out an identity for herself, made all the more difficult by the fact that she’s a clone of a famous space explorer. It’s a wonderfully exuberant space opera, and it’s something of an experiment: it’s only available as an audiobook.Set in the 22nd century, Mother Go follows Mariska Volochova, a girl raised on the Moon by a surrogate father. She’s t

Facebook and Instagram appear to be down for some users this morning with some unable to post and others unable to access the sites entirely.Facebook users have reported issues accessing page mailboxes, uploading images, and posting updates, on both the mobile and web versions. Some users received messages saying that there was a “temporary problem with this post,” or an issue with a URL, and to try again in a few minutes. Other users were greeted with a message that Facebook is down

GUEST: An alarming trend has emerged in the blockchain community: Around the world, we’re seeing blockchain “startups” scam people into investing by getting a big name endorsement.
It’s not exactly a pyramid scheme; I’ll call it a “circle scheme.” It’s all about summoning a group of clueless investors around an “opinion leader.” This person can be the scammer himself or, in most cases, someone reputable in the industry or on social medi

Amazon announced earlier this week that it’s extending the deep Echo discounts (part of the back-to-school sale) until September 4th. Although the Echo itself is already sold out (listed as currently unavailable) you can still grab the Echo Dot for $45, along with the Tap for $100. The retail giant is also offering discounts on Kindle and Fire devices which end tonight, so act fast if you want one.
Other highlights include Amazon’s deal of the day on several popular Anker products, a

Young Kansas City businesses are substantial job creators for the area, according to a recent report from entrepreneurial resource hub KCSourceLink.
In its recent “We Create Jobs” report, KCSourceLink found that new firms that employed fewer than 20 workers created 16,325 new jobs in 2016. And for the past five years, startups created an average of 16,376 new jobs in the metro area each year.
The report is the culmination of a long-held aspiration, said Maria Meyers, CEO of

Spoilers ahead for all of Game of Thrones.
The Game of Thrones season 7 finale airs this Sunday, and it’s sure to be full of bloodshed and gore, possibly with a dash of incestuous romance. With an ice zombie dragon that bears resemblance to a certain Yu-Gi-Oh! card in play, and relationships that fans have been rooting for finally blossoming, we’re heading into the finale with plenty of loose threads and questions to answer. Here are the top 12 things we hope to see addressed in the

Subways are rich fictional landscapes. They’re an accessible and liberating system that’s also regimented and claustrophobic, their underground stations mundane during rush hour and eerie at midnight. That’s part of what attracted me to Subsurface Circular, a text adventure by Thomas Was Alone creator Mike Bithell. It’s also what makes me wish that Subsurface Circular — a well-crafted little game that plays out like a short story — were so much deeper.
Subsurf

Gameheads is going back to school to solve the game industry’s diversity problem. It’s a year-round program based in Oakland, California, that teaches development to students in underserved communities. Today, its Second Annual Student Showcase will highlight 20 student-created games in an event that educators and industry professionals will attend. It’s from 4 p.m. to 7 p.m. at Impact Hub Oakland.
Gameheads executive director Damon Packwood came up with the program when he saw

Star Wars fans will soon be able to use the power of AR to find out more about the latest entry in the series, The Last Jedi.
Disney and LucasFilm today announced Find the Force, a global AR event kicking off on September 1. As IGN reports, from next month, over 20,000 retail locations across 30 countries will feature Star Wars graphics that fans will be able to scan with their phones to project a character appearing in the this holiday’s sequel.
They’ll show up in AR, much in t

A new Mario game is due out this month for the Nintendo Switch. No — not Super Mario Odyssey, which dominated this year’s E3 (the Electronic Entertainment Expo trade and fan show) in Los Angeles this past June. Nintendo’s next big Switch game is Mario + Rabbids: Kingdom Battle, which French publisher Ubisoft developed. It’s a turn-based tactics game that mashes up the Mushroom Kingdom with Ubisoft’s wacky Rabbid characters. If that sounds like an odd remix, don&rsqu