Technology news

When Colorado and Washington became the first states to legalize recreational marijuana in 2012, few could have predicted the scale of the growth which would bloom across the industry. Legal marijuana sales in the US and Canada are now expected to pass $20.2 billion by 2021 at a predicted annual growth rate of 25 percent, accounting for larger and faster industry growth than witnessed during the dot-com era. The growth is not just being facilitated by sale of pre-rolled joints in disp

Harvey is no ordinary storm.
Those old enough to remember Hurricane Katrina in 2005 can recall chilling images and video of a city submerged. A storm surge washed across New Orleans, inflicting countless casualties and billions in property damage. 
In Houston, it was not a surge of seawater that flooded the nation's 4th-largest city, but rather trillions of gallons of water from relentless rainbands rotating around a stationary storm.
SEE ALSO: Houston's good Samaritans are watching out for

Tropical Storm Harvey has dropped more than 11 trillion gallons of water on Texas, triggering catastrophic, unprecedented flooding in the Houston area. The rains have broken all-time records, exceeding the rainfall totals seen during Tropical Storm Allison in 2001. 
There may be no parallel available to any other rainstorm in U.S. history, based on the number of people affected, amount of water involved, and other factors, meteorologists have warned.
Due to its wide geographic scope across

 Machine intelligence startups are the black sheep of the startup world. The new kids on the block are challenging investors to do their technical homework and differentiate themselves in intentional ways. Y Combinator joined a growing list of investors offering exclusive services to these companies in a specialized AI track for its latest S17 batch of startups.
In the competitive world of… Read More

Sarahah, the anonymous feedback app that’s been going viral for the past couple weeks, isn’t quite as private as it sounds: it turns out, the app uploads users’ phone contacts to the company’s servers, seemingly for no good reason. The behavior was spotted by security analyst Zachary Julian and first reported by The Intercept.
The app doesn’t entirely hide this behavior. On both iOS and Android, Sarahah asks for permission to access each user’s phone contacts

Sarahah, the anonymous feedback app that’s been going viral for the past couple weeks, may not be as private as it sounds: it turns out, the app uploads users’ phone contacts to the company’s servers, seemingly for no good reason. The behavior was spotted by security analyst Zachary Julian and first reported by The Intercept.
Zain al-Abidin Tawfiq, the app’s founder, said that contact lists are being uploaded “for a planned ‘find your friends’ feature&rd

Tropical Storm Harvey is turning out to be one of the most powerful storms to hit the U.S. since 2005, and you don't have to sit on the sidelines as it continues to inundate parts of Texas
SEE ALSO: Airbnb offers Hurricane Harvey evacuees free shelter
The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) and other relief agencies are already taking stock of the situation to help with evacuations and rescue efforts in Texas. But if you're looking to pitch in sooner, here are some of the most reliable no

We are all, collectively, so aware that there is a worldwide problem when it comes to traffic that any fancy, improbable solution can become a viral hit in the blink of an eye. There was the bus that straddles traffic. Flying cars that plug into drones. Maglev pods. But none of those go quite as far as what Russian design firm Dahir Insaat has cooked up in a new video.The crux of the video is that one potential solution to traffic-choked cities could be big, room-sized vehicles with a ride heigh

As Tropical Storm Harvey beats down on Houston, good Samaritans throughout the area are showing up for one another in whatever ways possible. 
These shows of kindness — for strangers, for animals, for local correspondents — come as the city suffers historic flooding that the National Weather Service has deemed "unprecedented".
SEE ALSO: Apple is accepting donations through iTunes to aid Harvey storm relief
As the city braces for more rainfall in the coming hours, its residents a

You’ve seen them on Amazon.com or places like Facebook: “helpful” recommendations for other, similar products, games, or even content that you might like, based on your internet history. According to two artists, the algorithms that make these recommendations rule the internet, and with a new project called Signs of the Times, they aim to get people to think about their impact.
London-based artists Scott Kelly and Ben Polkinghorne installed a series of obtrusive banners in pict

Congrats, you just made $178,041!
Well, that is, if you're Floyd Mayweather, standing in the ring against Conor McGregor on Saturday night — and you took one second to read that sentence.
SEE ALSO: Floyd Mayweather totally out-classed Conor McGregor, but oh what a show!
In what has to be the biggest single payout in sports history, the 40-year-old Mayweather stands to make a total of $300 million for his win over 29-year-old MMA superstar McGregor. (He'd have made the same win or lose, so

Social media is helping track down the white supremacists responsible for brutally assaulting a counterprotester in Charlottesville.
Per a New York Times report, Daniel P. Borden, one of the multiple assailants who attacked 20-year-old Deandre Harris during the infamous "Unite the Right" rally on August 12 has been arrested. Police have also issued a wanted poster for Alex Michael Ramos, another man sought in connection to the crime. Both have face charges of malicious wounding. 
SEE ALSO:

Earlier this week we published a full review of the Asus ZenFone AR, a new, $600 Android smartphone that supports both Google Tango AR and Google Daydream VR. And it manages to do that in a much slimmer phone body than the Lenovo Phab 2 Pro, the only other other Tango phone that’s available. Throw in desktop-grade graphics processing, six to eight gigabytes of RAM, and a 23-megapixel rear camera, and you’ve got yourself a pretty good Android phone.But the AR and VR portion of this ph

The National Weather Service is pulling no punches when it comes to Hurricane Harvey. 
The federal agency is now calling the storm battering Texas and bringing historic levels of flooding to Houston "unprecedented." 
SEE ALSO: Hurricane Harvey: A weather geek's live blog"... All impacts are unknown & beyond anything experienced," the NWS added in a dire tweet.This event is unprecedented & all impacts are unknown & beyond anything experienced. Follow orders from officials to

As Tropical Storm Harvey causes catastrophic floods and torrential downpours across the Houston area, Apple is stepping up to aid storm relief. 
The tech company has teamed with American Red Cross to create an iTunes online store link where users can donate in increments of $5, $10, $25, $50, $100, or $200. 100 percent of the contributions will be given to American Red Cross to help provide relief efforts for those who were adversely affected by unprecedented storm.
SEE ALSO: Airbnb offers

Game of Thrones has never been about giving readers or viewers what they most want. Its author and screenwriters prefer to build fan expectations, then overturn them for narrative impact — and sometimes for pure shock value. And yet fans maintain hope that at least a few of the characters will reach a satisfying, well-deserved ending. That’s why there’s Game of Thrones Hope Chest, a new weekly poll where we put all our hopes together in one place. We aren’t asking what yo

Sometimes the best isn’t good enough. Instead of giving you a treasure trove of useful information that could help you increase your productivity, make millions of dollars, and find true-love, we’re taking a different tact: let’s bring out the worst in Google’s Chrome internet browser. Seriously, don’t try this at home, this is a list of some of the worst Chrome extensions we could find, some are actual threats to your computer security and others are just, well, t

If you heard Taryn Southern’s new single “Break Free” on the radio, you’d probably just keep driving or grocery shopping, or doing whatever you do in places that still have radios playing. The song is a big, moody ballad — the kind that might play during the climax of a Steven Spielberg movie. “Break Free” wasn’t composed by a John Williams copycat, but by artificial intelligence. The song is not a fluke or a novelty for Southern either; she’

As Hurricane Harvey continues to dump staggering amounts of rain over Houston, KHOU-TV, 11 News, one of the city's local TV news broadcasting stations, was forced to evacuate as flood waters surged in.
SEE ALSO: Historic, catastrophic flooding underway in Houston from Tropical Storm Harvey
The staff first evacuated to the second floor after flood water poured in during a live broadcast.Water coming into studio at #KHOU11... We are moving upstairspic.twitter.com/MMEljNatw7
— Doug Delony (@D

Hurricane Harvey made landfall in Texas yesterday, and while the storm has been downgraded to a tropical storm, it’s expected to drop up to 40 inches of rain in the area, which is leading to catastrophic flooding in the area. To help with the coming relief efforts, Apple has begun accepting donations for the Red Cross through iTunes.As with its efforts to collect money for the Southern Poverty Law Center after Charlottesville, Apple has opened a page on its storefronts that allows users to

Hurricane Harvey made landfall in Texas yesterday, and while the storm has been downgraded to a tropical storm, it’s expected to drop up to 40 inches of rain in the area, which is leading to catastrophic flooding in the area. To help with the coming relief efforts, Apple has begun accepting donations for the Red Cross through iTunes.As with its efforts to collect money for the Southern Poverty Law Center after Charlottesville, Apple has opened a page on its storefronts that allows users to

Phone Case of the Month is a monthly series in which we live with, and subsequently review, our time with a phone case. Phone cases are one of our only ways to express individuality with our smartphones, so what do our phone case choices say about us?
Everyone in the world seemed to love my bunny phone case. The receptionist at my doctor's office told me she looked it up and bought it during my appointment; the cashier at Dunkin' Donuts searched for it immediately after I bought an iced tea; and

After making landfall on Friday night, Hurricane Harvey has since been downgraded to a tropical storm but it is still wreaking damage throughout southeast Texas. Massive flooding is being reported in the Houston area, thanks to two bands of rain that merged and strengthened on top of the city overnight. In the last 24 hours, Houston and nearby Galveston have received 24 inches of rain, and it looks like it’s not letting up any time soon.
“We’re really dealing with a disaster th

Just three days into her comeback, Taylor Swift is breaking records.
Spotify announced Saturday that Swift's newest single "Look What You Made Me Do" broke the streaming service's record for same-day streams with 8 million plays, reports the Associated Press. 
The musician also broke a YouTube record for the 19 million same-day views on the single's lyric video.
SEE ALSO: Taylor Swift's new album, 'Reputation,' is coming in November omgSwift's Spotify record comes just a few weeks after the

Hello. I’m the paleontologist who keeps finding out more and more lame shit about dinosaurs, and I’m here to ruin your life.
You may remember me from last month, when I figured out that the tyrannosaurus rex, the vicious, real-life monster that frightened us all on the big screen in the 90’s, could not actually run. And I won’t stop finding out really lame shit about dinosaurs until you — until everyone, is no longer able to enjoy the film Jurassic Park. 
SEE A

With claimed returns of 6.5 times for every dollar spent, influencer marketing is definitely a bet that brands want to place with high stakes. But, is it really legit? CNN estimates that approximately 83 million Facebook accounts are fake accounts. Twitter is estimated to follow distantly with more than 20 million fake accounts. Business Insider states eight percent of Instagram accounts to be fake. Let’s face the truth. The massive fan following of our favorite celebrities, politicians a

Sometimes Game of Thrones theories are less theory and more straight up hype. And, in one case, the hype is just too real.
Cleganebowl is a prediction that has stayed with the Game of Thrones fandom since the days of yore, in 2013. Essentially, it's fueled by the dream of watching the two most feared fighters in all of Westeros, the Hound and the Mountain (who are also brothers), face off in a fight to the death.
SEE ALSO: Here's why Uncle Benjen's reunion with Jon Snow was so important in 'Game

Acclaimed horror filmmaker Tobe Hooper, who is perhaps best-known for his genre-defining 1974 classic, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, has died at the age of 74.
The Los Angeles County Coroner confirmed Hooper's death late on Saturday , according to Variety. The cause of death has not been revealed at present.
SEE ALSO: Spooky movie posters come to life with clay
In many ways, Hooper's work on Texas Chainsaw wrote the playbook for future indie horror successes. Even with a small budget — less

The latest season of Game of Thrones is coming to an end this weekend, which means that you’re going to need to get your epic fantasy fix somewhere else, possibly until 2019. You could go back and re-read the entire A Song of Ice and Fire series, but you could also take the time to discover an entirely new fantasy world.Fantasy literature has a long history, and there are tons of excellent books that you might not have come across. Here’s 8 epic fantasy novels that kick off an entire

The cargo ship Foylebank under construction at the Harland & Wolff shipyard. The ship was later renamed Patroclos.IMage: Bert Hardy/Picture Post/Hulton Archive/Getty ImagesIn the late 19th and early 20th centuries, the city of Belfast in Northern Ireland emerged as one of the shipbuilding capitals of the world.The sprawling Harland & Wolff shipyards cranked out thousands of Navy cruisers, monitors, aircraft carriers and civilian ocean liners, including one famously massive and ill-fated

PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds reached a new milestone last night: it had more than 800,000 players online at the same time on Steam, briefly beating out Valve’s own Dota 2.The game is pretty simple: a hundred people parachute onto a giant map, locate weapons, and proceed to kill one another. The last person standing wins. It’s also been steadily growing in popularity since it landed on Steam’s Early Access in March, and ranked fourth on Steam’s list of most concurre

Donald Trump woke up early on Sunday morning to grim news out of Texas: a flash flood emergency had been declared in and around Houston after 2 feet of rain fell in 24 hours, with more to come.
SEE ALSO: Hurricane Harvey slams storm chasers: 'One of the worst hurricanes I've ever been in'
In response, he picked up his phone and — using his preferred method of communication with the public — fired off a pair of tweets: Great coordination between agencies at all levels of governme

Weather forecasters' worst fears regarding Hurricane Harvey are being realized in Houston, the nation's 4th-largest city, as a historic deluge pounded the city overnight and into Sunday morning, with no signs of relenting. 
Widespread, "catastrophic" flooding is occurring, with emergency responders struggling to rescue people from rapidly flooding homes.
SEE ALSO: Hurricane Harvey: A weather geek's live blogOfficials report at least 1,000 people were rescued overnight from rising waters, an

According to Paris Hilton, "If somebody ever asks you to do something, do it really bad so you never have to do it again." 
Advice to live by. 
SEE ALSO: Let these silly 'Game of Thrones' GIFs soothe your battered soul
Look, we aren't all Dwight K. Schrute level obsessed with our jobs. Some of us are just trying to do the bare minimum. 
Here are some of the best attempts from people who are doing the most by doing the least.  Read more...
1. The light still shines bright.2. E

(Bloomberg) — This really shouldn’t be a surprise to anyone who’s done it: You are just no good at texting and walking. While you might do OK at the reading and typing part, your preoccupied brain isn’t paying enough attention to what’s going on with your feet. It’s such a hazard that Honolulu last month adopted an ordinance to outlaw smartphone use by pedestrians crossing streets. Now Stamford, Connecticut, may become the second U.S. city this year

Software might be eating the world, but most businesses are sitting out the feeding frenzy because they can’t release software fast enough to meet changing customer needs. No matter what kind of business you’re in — technology, consumer goods, manufacturing — companies are driving engagement with consumers through applications across web, mobile, point-of-sale and more. The faster an organization can improve its software, the more it can drive loyalty for itself and

The growth in digital banking is showing no signs of slowing down. Convenience, speed and security aren’t just extra benefits in consumers’ minds anymore. They are now a standard requirement of the rapidly changing customer-bank relationship. As a rule, traditional bank institutions struggle to build a loyal customer base, while the newly emerging digital-only banks, like Monzo or Tandem, have all the attributes of a strong brand and can keep customers both happy and engaged with th

If you’re trying to generate new business, an email campaign is a cost-effective strategy that can provide you with countless potential clients. Email can be automated and quick, and it has nearly an unlimited reach in today’s Internet-centric business world. However, a successful email campaign is not just a matter of sending out a bunch of emails. Instead, your material needs to be carefully crafted to capture your target audience’s attention as they peruse their inbox. If y

Floyd Mayweather Jr. will retire a perfect 50-0 — but hey, at least the newbie Conor McGregor made him work for it.
McGregor's first boxing match was a heckuva show — the 29-year-old mixed martial-arts superstar acquitted himself beautifully on Saturday night in Las Vegas, hitting Mayweather far more than the infamously slippery champ is used to — but one of the 40-year-old Mayweather's powerful right-hand jabs dazed the Irishman badly in the 9th round, and that was all it took

A dog named Otis wasn't about to go hungry during Hurricane Harvey. 
As the hurricane made landfall, a dog was spotted wandering around Sinton, Texas carrying a full bag of dog food. 
The German shepherd mix wasn't a stray—he just got loose from a screen porch. 
"I kept yelling his name and yelling his name and he wasn't around," his caretaker Salvador Segovia told the Houston Chronicle. The dog belongs to Segovia's 5-year-old grandson, who had evacuated in anticipation