Technology news

Frank Giacco, 11, absolutely loves the White House lawn. The president of the United States though?
Frankly, he just DGAF.
At least that's how it appeared to observers who watched Giacco mow the White House lawn this Friday. Giacco had previously written to the White House asking if he could mow the lawn free of charge because "I would like to show the nation what young people like me are ready for" (free child labor).
SEE ALSO: Here are all the deportable offenses Trump's crappy children have c

Selling Sunlight is a story-driven role-playing game where the sun always shines — which isn’t as idyllic as it sounds. The planet has stopped turning, plunging one half into freezing darkness and subjecting the other to a blazing heat from perpetual daylight. Indie studio CoseBelle will launch a Kickstarter campaign on September 19 to raise the remaining funds needed to complete development on the game, but a free demo is available now to download on the indie platform Itc

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Getting stuck at work sucks. But getting stuck at work when you’re a pet owner is even worse: not only are you missing dinner, but you have to imagine your hungry little pal waiting for you at homeWhile we can’t do anything about your annoying boss who keeps making last-minute demands, we can help make sure your pupper or cat-friend never misses a meal. 
SEE ALSO: Keep your iPh

Not all energy is consumed equally across the worldAn estimated 16 percent of the world’s population — 1.2 billion people — have little or no access to electricity. 
One shocking similarity in this large number is the urban-rural divide: Upwards of 80 percent of sufferers of energy-poverty live in rural areas. 
Because of lack of access to electricity and modern energy sources, people around the world,  especially in rural communities, struggle to break out of th

As the fervor over anti-Trump comments made by ESPN's Jemele Hill continuing to grow, her supporters are taking to social media armed with an incendiary hashtag to show solidarity.
SEE ALSO: ESPN is now the frontline of the American political-culture war
Borrowing from the charitable "Ice Bucket Challenge" meme of a few years back, Hill's supporters are standing by her Trump tweets by using the hashtag "#NaziBucketChallenge."I am the descendant of a World War II solider& a Korea solider &

Jamie Lee Curtis is back to reclaim her crown as the scream queen of the silver screen. 
The actress will reprise her iconic role as Laurie Strode in the Halloween franchise in 2018. 
SEE ALSO: This kid dressed as Pennywise is pure nightmare fuel
Curtis tweeted a photo of herself with masked murderer Michael Myers on Friday with an ominous message that she was "headed back to Haddonfield one last time for Halloween" in 2018."Same porch. Same clothes. Same issues. 40 years later. Headed

Misleading iOS "security" apps are about to be a thing of the past.
Apple has updated its developer guidelines with a new policy that bans deceptive "virus-scanning" apps for the first time.
SEE ALSO: Apple’s biggest announcement won’t be the iPhone 8, but HOW you use it
From the latest App Store guidelines:A quick search of the App Store also suggests that Apple has been quietly removing many of the apps that purport to have such capabilities, as search terms like "virus scanner" an

GUEST:Cast your mind back to around the year 2005 and you’ll remember a revolution in technology. Think about the introduction of a machine so smart that it promised to serve you in a supermarket while cutting wait times and reducing the amount of time staff spent on rote tasks. This technology is best known as the self-service register.Consumers were suspicious at first, but people like me were soon impressed by this technology. Now, my introverted heart sinks when I hear the fa

Hurricanes Harvey and Irma proved to be a flashpoint for several tech companies, as several of them came together to help victims and provide relief in the aftermath of the two massive storms. Tech played a large part in both financial and practical aid efforts in Texas, Florida, and the Caribbean. Some companies gave money to help areas rebuild, while others aided response workers and civilian rescuers. After such a rough couple of weeks, seeing people in the tech sphere help out people devast

Going viral sucks. 
We're not talking about influencers and celebrities who make their careers off the attention of the general public, we're talking about those random, people who are suddenly thrust into the national spotlight for doing something remarkably unremarkable.
The most recent example is that Florida Hot Cop who turned out to be an anti-semite. Surprise, surprise.
But he's not the first. 
Chewbacca Mom, Ken Bone, Gary from Chicago, Chicken Nugget Kid, and most recently, the

Apple has tried its best to channel Steve Jobs’ showmanship during its recent presentations, as seen during the company’s recent iPhone X launch. But perhaps it goes deeper than that: an AI speech analyzer thinks Steve Jobs and Tim Cook actually have the same speechwriter. There’s plenty of reason to doubt the claim, but it’s an interesting finding nonetheless. The AI, called Emma, was created by the developers of Unicheck, a site for detecting plagiarism in college pape

Blizzard revealed today that two new characters and a new map inspired by Overwatch are coming to its multiplayer online battle arena (MOBA) for PC, Heroes of the Storm. Junkrat and Ana are joining the fight, while Volskaya Foundry will be the new battleground. We don’t know when the update with all this new content will launch.
Heroes of the Storm combines character from all of Blizzard’s properties. Overwatch, however, is one of Blizzard’s hottest games. The team-ba

Your destination will now come to life when you search on Google Maps.
Google has added a new video feature to accompany its mapping service, the company announced. Now, when you search a destination, you'll be able to find video footage of the location in the section of the map where you usually see user-submitted photos.
SEE ALSO: Google Maps just added a Q&A feature for Android usersRight now, only Local Guides — designated users who contribute photos, reviews, and information about

It was a wonderful night.
Jay-Z mingled with fellow tuxedo-clad guests. Beyoncé delicately dabbed her face with the finest of cloth napkins. Leonardo DiCaprio looked off in the distance as someone conversed with him. Kendrick Lamar handed me a microphone (yes, you read that right) and Cardi B's four assistants gathered her dress to help the "Bodak Yellow" queen make her way through the ballroom full of tables at Rihanna’s third annual Diamond Ball.
In the middle of it all sat a 29-y

  
It might not be obvious to those working through mountains of homework each night, but the years spent throughout the K-12 school system are some of the most important years in life. 
Not only are kids accruing skills necessary for adulthood, but they’re forging the kinds of friendships that will turn into the type of meaningful relationships that last forever. 
School is also the perfect way for kids to participate in the types of extracurricular activities everyone

Just one day after Facebook responded to an ongoing anti-Semitic advertising controversy, both Google and Twitter have become embroiled in the same debate concerning oversight and moderation on the web’s pervasive and powerful ad platforms.Google’s ad tech, the main contributor to its parent company Alphabet’s roughly $100 billion in annual revenue, lets advertisers target search users by what phrases they type into the query field. A report from BuzzFeed News today found that

Despite our best efforts, we’re teaching AI the wrong lessons. Bias has crept into our machines and, unless we urge developers to change business as usual, it’s there to stay. We’ve asked the computers to try and see the world as humans do, and they’ve responded by showing the potential to be as racist and ignorant as we are. Don’t get me wrong, not all robots are bigots; but the existence of the ones that are is an area for concern. Tay, the Microsoft bot who lear

Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren and 11 other Democratic senators introduced a bill this week that could give people the ability to freeze their credit for free. Warren also announced that she's sent letters to the country's three biggest credit reporting firms (Equifax, TransUnion, and Experian), the FTC, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, and the Government Accountability Office in an effort to kickstart an investigation into Equifax's monumental data breach that affected more tha

T-Mobile will limit data speeds on the Apple Watch Series 3 to a maximum of 512kbps despite the smartwatch’s support for LTE connectivity, a spokesperson has confirmed to The Verge. As MacRumors noticed earlier today, the throttled speeds are mentioned on the carrier’s website. Apple isn’t yet advising customers of T-Mobile’s capped data performance. The 512kbps limit is also applied to smartwatches from other companies such as Samsung.
“Customers can do everything

The hacking group OurMine has been breaking into company networks and social accounts for years, usually inflicting more embarrassment than outright damage — but when they gained access to Vevo servers last night, the company somehow managed to provoke something worse.According to a screenshot posted by OurMine, the group contacted a Vevo representative at 6:10PM with news of the compromise, only to be met with profanity and disbelief.In response, OurMine posted 3.1 terabytes of data from

Recent projects like Westworld: The Experience have merged film and television with the world of in-person, immersive experiences, and now Amazon is embracing the concept with an interactive haunted house based on its upcoming new show Lore. Lore: A Haunting Experience will run from October through November in Los Angeles, and will take groups of eight visitors on an hour-long journey inspired by tales of folklore and scenes from the series.
The television show Lore is scheduled for release on F

GUEST: Artificial intelligence is one of the most powerful technologies invented by humankind. This technology has affected almost every industry, including the medical, finance, and banking Industries. Due to its enormous potential, investors are sinking some serious funding into AI.
Results from a study conducted by Forrester Research predict that investments in AI will increase by 300 percent in 2017. Many tech giants like Facebook, Google, Apple, Microsoft, and others have already started in

Add NYC to the list of cities that want to be the home for Amazon’s new headquarters.To inform its proposal, the city is asking for people, community organizations, and businesses to submit ideas and information about what the potential Amazon space and programs could look like. New York believes it’s a strong contender for a number of reasons, including its vast higher education system, diverse workforce, and proven track record with hosting tech headquarters. The city’s Googl

Earlier this year, I picked up Ruthanna Emrys’ debut novel, Winter Tide, a tale based on the exhaustively canvassed cosmic horror of H.P. Lovecraft. Along with a previous novelette called The Litany of Earth, it subverts Lovecraft’s notorious racism by making his monsters — which were often thinly veiled stand-ins for people of color — sympathetic protagonists. In the 1920s, the US government locks ancient Deep Ones in internment camps, including the series’ protago

Last week, the Syfy channel unveiled its Origin Stories podcast, a series of 15 episodes featuring interviews between Adam Savage and a number of well-known celebrities within the geek world.
The episodes make for a couple of hours of solid listening, with the various actors, showrunners, and authors talking about their work and how they discovered science fiction. What’s neat about the series is that it’s not just a listening experience. Syfy is also animating some of the anecdotes

If you ever listen to podcasts (and don’t skip the ads), you’ve heard about the magic of subscription boxes. I’m a big fan — not only do they make life so much easier and more convenient, they also merge the excitement of getting a package in the mail with the joy of opening a gift. That’s double the fun, y’all. 
SEE ALSO: 8 of the best subscription boxes for beauty addicts
We’ve rounded up our favorite subscription box services from food, to wine,

The past year has seen wonderful advances in smartphone design – and more specifically, killing the bezel. The current wave began when Xiaomi announced the Mi Mix late last year, after which LG, Samsung, and Essential all took their own approach to maximizing screen real estate in 2017. Now there’s the iPhone X, and it’s the final nail in the coffin. Say what you will about Apple, but there’s no denying that the company has the most influence to define smartphone trends,

I have become the unofficial standard bearer for webOS, the operating system created by Palm for the Pre and its successive devices. It was a wildly innovative and smart foundation for a smartphone done in by performance problems, mediocre hardware, and most of all by US carriers who acted as kingmakers for other companies.
So as the bearer of a thoroughly-tattered banner, I’ve been hearing a lot of people ask what I thought about the iPhone X and how it borrows many of the ideas first int

When nature photographer Justin Hofman was out snorkeling off the coast of the Indonesian island of Sumbawa last year, he didn’t know he was going to stumble upon what could be the poster child for today’s marine trash crisis: a tiny seahorse latching onto a cotton swab.The photo, which Hofman posted on Instagram, is now a finalist in the Wildlife Photographer of the Year competition from the Natural History Museum in London. In the post, Hofman said he wishes the photo didn’t

It’s easy to overlook Bing. Launched with great fanfare in 2009, it’s otherwise failed to dislodge Google in the search space. Despite that, it has fans, not least in the UK where it accounts for almost 25 percent of all search volume. Catering to this market, British startup Booxscale has announced a partnership with Microsoft, allowing UK-based Bing users to order pizza and hire handymen, all with the press of a button. Microsoft plans to use Booxscale’s technology to enhanc

Fake “virus scanning” apps have plagued the iOS App Store for a while, and Apple seems to finally be banning them once and for all in updated developer guidelines it published this week, via 9to5Mac.The updated developer guidelines, compiled by Paul Hudson over at Hacking With Swift, now includes a ban on apps that claim to “including content or services that it does not actually offer” — something that includes any iOS virus scanning apps, seeing as it wasn’t

Apple’s new iPhone X, unveiled on Tuesday with an edge-to-edge OLED display and a $999 price tag, is bound to shake up the high-end smartphone market in unforeseen ways. We don’t know how it will impact Apple’s overall sales, or whether it will set off a kind of mobile arms race to see which phone maker can outdo the other in the upper premium price point.It’s already dividing both diehard Apple fans and longtime iOS detractors over the very idea of a phone costing into t

A Washington man has been convicted of sending illicit images of a child — the child in question being him. An ill-advised selfie took a harassment case to the state’s Supreme Court, who ruled that even a selfie can be considered child pornography if sent to an adult. According to the Seattle Patch, the sender of the selfie was, at the time, seventeen. He sent it to an adult woman, telling her it was for her and her underage daughter. The woman called the police, saying the young ma

Preorders for the new iPhone 8 and 8 Plus began early this morning, and it looks like many consumers are still debating whether to upgrade to the new models or hold out for the premium iPhone X, which is slated for a November release. With the Note 8 also hitting stores today and the Google Pixel still on deck for an official announcement, we polled The Verge’s staff to see why they are or are not looking to upgrade to the new iPhone, and whether Animoji, Face ID, and a bezel-less screen a

With the unveiling of three brand-new iPhone models released on Tuesday, consumers were quick to jump online and share their thoughts about their (more than) exorbitant prices. UK Software engineer, Felipe Schmitt took this opportunity to develop The real cost of an iPhone, a website providing consumers in different countries a quick and visual way to understand how many hours they need to work to afford each model. This gonna be me when i see the new iPhone prices at the #AppleEvent €

Apple made a subtle overture to China during its iPhone event on Tuesday as part of its long-term goal to win over the giant market. During a segment presenting the revamped Apple Watch, Apple COO Jeff Williams made a quick reference to WeChat, a messaging app popular in China. “Third-party apps like WeChat work over cellular as well,” he said while discussing the watch’s LTE features. Out of the more than two million third-party apps out there, Williams only called out WeChat.

Lenovo has launched four new Android tablets (yes, they still exist) under its Tab 4 line. First spotted by PhoneRadar, the Tab 4 8, Tab 4 8 Plus, Tab 4 10, and Tab 4 10 Plus are the latest additions to the company’s tablet offerings. They all run Android Nougat. Let’s break them down:
Lenovo Tab 4 10 Plus
10.1-inch Full HD display
Qualcomm Snapdragon 625 octa-core processor
Up to 64GB of storage
Up to 4GB of RAM
8MP rear, 5MP front-facing camera
The Tab 4 10 Plus is the most powerfu