Technology news

It’s not the nicest laptop out there, but this modded 2008 MacBook Pro is definitely the nicest laptop running DeX — Samsung’s portable desktop software, which isn’t actually meant to be built into a laptop.
As spotted by SamMobile, a modder named Kris Henriksen (who also appears to be the co-founder of a Bitcoin payments startup) cracked open an old MacBook and replaced some of its internals with parts that allow it to run DeX off of a phone. Henriksen replaced the lapto

The tweets in your timeline are about to get super-sized. Twitter said today that it has started testing 280-character tweets, doubling the previous character limit, in an effort to help users be more expressive. “Our research shows us that the character limit is a major cause of frustration for people tweeting in English,” the company said in a blog post. “When people don’t have to cram their thoughts into 140 characters and actually have some to spare, we see more peopl

The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild modders have been busy adding Minecraft characters, Mario hats, and even Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas’ Carl Johnson as playable skins. But none of those hold a candle to “Breath of the Wah’ld,” a piece of perfection that turns Link into Waluigi.
The lanky, purple loving plumber(?) can be added to Wii U and Wii U emulator Cemu versions of Breath of the Wild. Finally, Waluigi is able to overcome the shadow of his far more palatable d

Musician B.o.B has started a GoFundMe campaign that’s looking to raise $1 million to “launch one, if not multiple, satellites into space,” toward the goal of “finding the curve.”
In other words: B.o.B would like you to give him a million dollars so that he can prove that the Earth is in fact round, and not, as B.o.B currently believes (despite the frankly impossibly overwhelming glut of evidence to the contrary) flat.The cities in the background are approx. 16miles

According to Bloomberg, the Food and Drug Administration has announced the names of nine companies participating in a pilot program that could let them pre-clear products instead of going through the agency’s traditional application process.
The program, called Pre-cert, will include Apple, Fitbit, Samsung, Alphabet-owned Verily, Johnson & Johnson, Pear Therapeutics, Phosphorus, Roche, and Tidepool. The program had attracted over 100 interested companies, and the FDA made its selection

Saudi Arabia announced today that it will end its long-standing prohibition on women drivers, according to The New York Times. The ban won’t be lifted immediately, though: the kingdom stated that it will need time to both educate women how to drive and men on how to interact with women on the road.The new policy, which will go into effect in June 2018, was announced on state-owned media and at an event held in Washington, DC, highlighting how much of this decision was geared toward changin

Hurricane Maria whirled through Puerto Rico almost a week ago, but we still don’t know the full extent of the devastation that the Category 4 storm left behind.The hurricane hit the island with winds spinning at 155 miles per hour, tearing down power lines and cell towers. More than 11,400 people remain in 159 shelters throughout Puerto Rico, says Delyris Aquino, a spokesperson for the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA). The Associated Press reported a higher number on Sunday, writ

If you thought Atari’s new console, the Ataribox, would exist simply to rehash old classics, you can put those worries to rest. An interview with venturebeat revealed the company plans to position it as a legitimate gaming console, though perhaps one less powerful than the Xbox One and PS4. VentureBeat interviewed Ataribox creator Feargal Mac, and reports the device will be priced around $250 to $300, putting it on par with the current generation of consoles. It will run on Linux with a T

The Brooklyn Academy of Music’s Loss for Words exhibit is part of its annual Next Wave art festival, a celebration of visual arts, theatrical works, music, dance, and film. The theme of this year’s exhibit is the emergence of visuals as the primary mode of communicating rather than the written word — or, as the exhibit’s guide puts it: “a basic shift in our culture, from text-based communication to one where images are the dominant tool of expression.” Going i

With the release of Tinder Gold last month, many people are looking for new dating alternatives. And I can’t really blame them. What was once “the game,” swipe to your heart’s content, not worry if someone was out of your league, because, unless they also swiped right on you, it was a no harm, no foul situation. Of course, there were those that swiped right on everything to help bolster their self-esteem in the form of more matches, but generally speaking, this

STDs are on the rise in the US, says the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The highest-ever number of cases of chlamydia, gonorrhea, and syphilis were recorded in 2016.
There were 2 million cases overall. Of those, 1.6 million were chlamydia and nearly half of these diagnoses were young women, according to the annual Sexually Transmitted Disease Surveillance Report. Syphilis rates grew about 18 percent from 2015 to 2016, and most of these cases were men, especially gay and bisexual men

Apple tends to be notoriously quiet about the internal specs of its phones, particularly when it comes to things like battery size or RAM. But Tenaa — China’s telecommunication authority, similar to the FCC in the US — has confirmed that the iPhone X will come with 3GB of RAM and a 2,716mAh battery, as reported by Steve Hemmerstoffer (also known as OnLeaks) on Twitter.The 3GB of RAM isn’t too notable — it’s the same as found in the iPhone 8 Plus and less than

The Apple TV has made a return to Amazon after a nearly two-year absence that began in October 2015. There’s now an order page for the new 64GB Apple TV 4K that’s listed as “ships from and sold by Amazon.com,” signifying that the online retail giant will once again be offering Apple’s set-top box — once it’s in stock, that is. 9to5Mac first reported on the new listing.The Apple TV 4K went on sale last Friday and has been relatively hard to come by at App

Between 2008 and 2012, warmer than usual waters caused four glaciers in Western Antarctica to flow toward the sea faster than any other glacier on the continent. The glaciers also lost more than three times the amount of ice than usual, according to new research. All these changes are bad news for Antarctica — and us. As grounded glaciers melt, sea levels around the world rise.The four glaciers described in the study, published last week in the journal Earth and Planetary Science Letters,

Today, Uber said it will cease operations in Quebec next month after the Canadian province passed new regulations that the company opposed, Reuters is reporting. The decision to pull out of Canada’s second most populous province comes as Uber is battling a decision by London officials to revoke its license, dealing a blow to new CEO Dara Khosrowshahi’s effort to rebuild the company’s image.Uber’s general manager in Quebec said the company would end its service on October

Amidst a series of troubles worldwide, Uber is taking steps to ensure its drivers feel as safe as its passengers. The company’s new Feedback for Riders takes rider ratings beyond the stars. Starting today, UberPOOL and UberX riders in the US and Canada will be able to receive constructive feedback in order to create a better community for both drivers and riders. The company is aware that passengers check (and care about) their rating, but most of the time don’t know the reason behi

Sirin Labs today announced it’s developing a smartphone and PC designed to function on the blockchain. The devices will ship with built-in resource-sharing capabilities and run on their own cryptocurrency token. The Finney smartphone and PC are being billed as niche` products, and with a price tag of $999 for the phone and $799 for the PC. After all, not everyone needs a secure e-wallet device that allows them to spend tokens on shared resources — but it would be really cool if we a

The vacation rental market is booming, and it’s largely thanks to one site in particular: Airbnb. In just a few years, it’s transformed the way people travel, and in the process ballooned into a multi-billion dollar company. But it’s also a fragmented market. Several compelling Airbnb rivals have emerged, like Flipkey and Homeaway. It’s common to see the same property listed across different sites, with differing prices and availability. One site that aims to bring sense

A few new details on Atari’s upcoming Ataribox console have leaked out today. The company has revealed that it’s planning on selling the Ataribox through an Indiegogo campaign this fall for a vague $250 to $300 price range ahead of a spring 2018 release date, according to a report by VentureBeat.The report also revealed some more information about what to expect from the hardware and software for the Ataribox, which will run a custom AMD processor with Radeon graphics. It will also r

Instagram is introducing a few new tools today to help make comments more bearable. Mainly, the company is finally giving users more control over who can actually comment on posts. Previously, Instagram comments were all or nothing – either you allowed people to comment on your posts, or you didn’t. Now you can limit comments to only come from people that you follow and/or your followers, and you can also block specific commenters as well. Instagram recently added the ability to aut

If you live in one of the countries where “Star Trek: Discovery” is available on Netflix — which means everywhere except the US and Canada — then you’ll be able to watch the show with Klingon language subtitles, which probably ranks as one of the nerdiest Easter eggs I’ve ever encountered. It’s a pity this hasn’t been included on the CBS All Access streaming service, the only place American audiences can watch the show. The video player on their s

Google is reportedly spinning off its comparison shopping service into a “standalone unit” after it was the subject of a record €2.42 billion fine ($2.7 billion) from the European Union. According to a report from Bloomberg, the tech giant will comply with the EU’s ruling by separating Google Shopping from the rest of its search business. The service will remain part of Google itself, but will “operate separately and use its own revenues to bid for ads.”The EU

Cowboy Bebop director Shinichiro Watanabe has a new project out today: an anime prequel to the upcoming movie Blade Runner 2049. The 15-minute short, Blade Runner Black Out 2022, can be watched in its entirety on Crunchyroll.Black Out 2022 is the third of three prequel shorts that connect the original film with its upcoming sequel. It takes place three years after the original movie, when replicants are blamed for an electricity failure that throws cities into chaos. Watanabe is known for blendi

Welcome to Cheat Sheet, our brief breakdown-style reviews of festival films, VR previews, and other special event releases. This review comes from Fantastic Fest in Austin, Texas.
One of the serious advantages to smaller, indie speculative-fiction movies is that you generally don’t know what you’re getting up front. In today’s anticipation culture, websites often drool over every possible detail and reveal about the bigger nerd-friendly properties. It’s easy to walk into

One of the most useful tricks in Apple’s iOS 11 update is found inside the Notes app: it’s a document scanner. If there’s a business card, receipt, or any other document you want to save or mark up, this tool makes getting it on your iPhone or iPad dead simple. If you’ve been using a third-party app for this purpose until now — and there are several great ones — you can probably uninstall it in favor of Apple’s own solution. That’s what I did, anyw

We live in a world where formerly unattainable futuristic touchstones like “flying cars” and autonomous vehicles are being treated with straight-faced sincerity by some of the biggest companies in world. So I guess it was only a matter of time before we had to start taking jetpacks seriously, too.A new two-year, $2 million global competition called the Go Fly Prize was introduced today at an aerospace industry conference in Texas with the goal of producing “an easy-to-use, pers

The US Department of Homeland Security has amended its rules to require immigrants to disclose their social media accounts. The agency will now collect information including “social media handles, aliases, associated identifiable information, and search results” on immigrants, including permanent residents and naturalized citizens.
Similar rules were first considered last year. The DHS finalized its plans last week, though they weren’t publicized until last night when they were

This past weekend, Showtime websites were found to be running a script that allows the sites to mine visitors’ extra CPU power for cryptocurrency, as pointed out by users on Twitter. The afflicted sites included showtime.com and showtimeanytime.com, but the script has since been removed following reports from Gizmodo and other sites.The crypto mining Javascript is called Coinhive, and according to the site, it was made as an alternative to banner ads as a way for website owners to get arou

Mozilla today announced that its significant overhaul of the Firefox browser — called Firefox Quantum — had entered the beta stage, making it tantalisingly close to a general consumer release. Firefox Quantum isn’t an incremental release, but rather a significant step forward for the enduring Chrome-challenger. It’s geared to take advantage of multi-core setups, as are so common in today’s computers. For instance, Quantum ships with a brand new CSS engine written i

Dyson, the UK company best known for its pricey vacuum cleaners, is building an electric car. The vehicle is set to be unveiled in 2020, and Dyson says it already has a team of “over 400 strong” working on the project. The company plans to invest over £2 billion ($2.6 billion) in the endeavor, drawing on its battery and digital motor expertise to further development.
Speaking to The Guardian, the company’s founder and CEO James Dyson said the car wouldn’t be a sport

Uber is announcing a few notable changes today, starting with a new feature that allows drivers to offer an additional layer of feedback to unruly riders. Working off the assumption that no one likes IRL confrontation, drivers can now choose from a preselected list of reasons to explain why they rated a passenger as less than five stars. So the next time you take too long getting in the car, or you have a loud phone conversation in the back seat, you’ll be hearing about it from your Uber d

If you saw me in a coffee shop, you probably wouldn’t think I’m running a profitable business and working with some of the largest websites in the world. The reality is that I’m an entrepreneur and by trade a marketing consultant, which means I tend to work with enterprise-level companies who aren’t exactly being run by a CEO in a coffee shop like myself. I often get asked about the tools and strategies that I use to communicate with my clients. I very much believe that

Are you building a business and raising a family? Are you struggling to give both your company and your children the attention they need? You are not alone in this struggle. With more than nine million women business owners in the United States, you’re definitely not alone in your efforts to juggle owning a company and being a mom. While there are sure to be some challenges along the way, you are probably like most entrepreneurial women and would not change your life for anything. Even th

Back in 2014, Kano launched a compelling DIY kit to let children build their own computers and learn to code while they were at it. Three years on, it’s got a new kit that kids aged six and up can craft into a laptop. The $250 Computer Kit Complete features a Raspberry Pi 3 board, 10.1-inch HD display, rechargeable battery pack, three-port USB hub, speaker, wireless keyboard, and sound sensor. All the components fit into a case and stand, and Kano says the assembled laptop can fit into a

Solar and wind power get all the attention, but harvesting energy from evaporation could go a long way toward solving our power problems — at least in theory.This method of harvesting energy is in very early stages. Unlike solar and wind power, evaporation technology is not commercialized yet and won’t be for a while. So is it worth pursuing further? Scientists wrote a model to figure this out, and predicted that the energy potentially available from evaporation is comparable to that

The Open Source Initiative today announced that Microsoft has joined the organisation as an official sponsor. Founded in 1998, the Open Source Initiative is one of the most effective advocates for open source software, emphasising education, collaboration, and “preventing abuse of the ideals and ethos inherent to the open source movement.” Sponsorship is a vocal acknowledgement of open source values. It also provides the organization with much-needed funds, although the announcement

The Yomee is a new gadget on Kickstarter designed to make you yogurt. It's essentially an automated milk heating and cooling system that also happens to rely on pods. Pods! As you can always expect from a proprietary pod-related gadget, the device relies on individual yogurt culture packs that you can only buy from Yomee. The pods themselves don't have a barcode or even wrapping. They're just dusty compressed milk and yogurt culture in the shape of a pod.You can buy yogurt culture on the interne

Microsoft is unveiling future changes to its OneDrive cloud storage service today at the company’s Ignite conference in Orlando. The software giant is improving the web interface of OneDrive, with a cleaner UI and the ability to easily see what content has been shared with others with a new people card and information pane. The interface also includes tweaks to the folder interface.OneDrive for webOneDrive will also be updated with improved sharing options for Office, Windows, and Mac. Off

Aerospace startup Rocket Lab is gearing up for the second flight ever of the company’s experimental rocket, the Electron, which is slated to take off again sometime in October. This time, when the vehicle flies, it will have satellites on board.
Both Planet and Spire — two companies that operate small satellites in orbit — will have payloads on the Electron’s second test flight, dubbed “Still Testing.” The rocket will carry two of Planet’s Dove satellite

Dubai has test-flown an uncrewed two-seater drone designed to transport people autonomously. Called the Autonomous Air Taxi (AAT), the city claims the vehicle will be the world’s first self-flying taxi service. The AAT is environmentally friendly, powered by electricity, and the prototype version has a maximum flight time of 30 minutes, at a cruising speed of 50 km/h (31 mph), and a maximum airspeed of 100 km/h (62 mph).The drone was uncrewed and hovered 200 meters high during the test fli

On Friday, SpaceX CEO Elon Musk will be giving a “major” update on his plans to colonize Mars during a presentation at the International Astronautical Congress in Adelaide, Australia. His talk is meant to add to the one he gave at last year’s IAC conference in Mexico, when he revealed the full architecture of his plans to send thousands of peoples to the Martian surface. This time around, it seems his speech may revolve around making the concept more feasible — mainly by

Welcome to Cheat Sheet, our brief breakdown-style reviews of festival films, VR previews, and other special event releases. This review comes from Fantastic Fest in Austin, Texas.Some Stephen King adaptations are easier than others. 1922 writer-director Zak Hilditch had it comparatively easy: his film has to contend with a period setting and a horde of rats, but it’s a small, straightforward character piece, carried more by actors than effects. The makers of Spike’s The Mist series h

Following more than two years of anticipation, Google and Levi’s are finally making good on their promise to deliver a smart denim jacket that can also control your devices – though it is admittedly more of a gimmick than an actual feature at this point. The high-tech attire, which has been at least two years in the works, will retail this Wednesday at a number of “select stores” and will go on sale on Levis.com next week. But there is a nasty surprize in store for inter