Technology news

GUEST:In a 2014 editorial titled “Bitcoin is the New PayPal,” we made the case that PayPal’s history could provide insight on Bitcoin’s future. Specifically, we argued that, in the short term, the Bitcoin ecosystem would expect a bumpy ride from fraudsters, but with some precautions the various players in the ecosystem could ultimately prevail.
Fast forward three years, and it’s largely mission accomplished. Bitcoin is safe and has entered the mainstream. The fallou

In November, word broke that Disney and 21st Century Fox had begun to discuss the possibility of Disney acquiring most of Fox’s film and television assets, but just as quickly, it became clear that those discussions had since ended. Now, it seems as though those talks are back on, according to a report in The Wall Street Journal.The WSJ cites reports of people familiar with the situation who say that the talks are currently active and are gaining momentum, although it’s possible that

On Friday, the UK’s National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC) issued a new guidance for how the country’s various ministries should closely manage their use of antivirus software supplied by a foreign nation, such as Russia’s Kaspersky Lab.In a letter to to heads of government ministries, NCSC CEO, Ciaran Martin said that organizations “need to be vigilant to the risk that an [antivirus] product under the control of a hostile actor could extract sensitive data from that netwo

GUEST: Luxury Italian retailer Yoox has announced it is running an exciting new type of pre-roll ad on YouTube: 15-second buy-it-or-lose-it offers. The company will be runnign the ads until mid-December in a few regions globally.
The ads are 15-second countdowns featuring a unique product, so. The user has to make a decision to buy on the spot or they will lose out and the item will be offered to someone else. Even if they go looking for it later, they won’t be able to find the product on

In Los Angeles, the auto industry is holding its breath. Change is coming, but no one exactly knows when or how EVs or self-driving cars will make a dent in the way Americans drive. What is clear is that if new technologies are successful, California, with its push toward zero emissions and lucrative tax incentives, will lead the way in the charge.
The vast majority of the thousand cars on display at the Los Angeles Convention Center are powered by traditional gasoline engines and offer seating

In the opening of her debut novel Barbary Station, R.E. Stearns drops her readers into the midst of a thrilling heist of a colonial spaceship traveling through the solar system — and that’s just the first chapter. What follows is a fantastic, lightning-fast space opera that serves as both a fantastic thriller with a cast of well-drawn characters, and a wonderful sandbox of a world that I can’t wait to revisit over and over again.A couple of centuries from now, humanity has colo

GUEST: When I ranked last year’s top 10 startup ecosystems, they didn’t show much movement from the year before. But this year’s analysis has shown tectonic shifts in the world’s innovation landscape.
A new entrant has joined us this year, Shanghai, with Berlin dropping out of the top 10. Los Angeles has jumped from seventh to fourth in a tie with Stockholm, which dropped a spot. Beijing had the most dramatic increase, from eighth to a second-place tie with Tel Aviv. This

Netgear has dipped its toes into the retail market with the launch of a co-branded store with electronics retailer B8ta at a prime location at the Santana Row luxury outdoor mall in San Jose, California.
The new concept store opening today is the first in the networking company’s 20-year history, inspired in part by the stores of other product makers, such as Apple. The store is more like a showroom, which is the kind of experience-focused retail that B8ta is creating to add more

If you’ve used or owned any piece of personal technology over the past decade, chances are good that you’ve come across a MicroUSB cable in that time. It was the standard choice for charging and connecting Android devices for many years, and it remains the most common way to charge wireless headphones to this day. Apple’srecently updated Beats Studio 3 and Solo 3 models both use it; Sony’s upgraded 1000XM2s also rely on it; and even flagship smartphones like the brand new

I was a little skeptical about going to see Coco last weekend, since I've heard mixed things about some of the recent Pixar films. Aside from the studio's shorts (which have been very good!), I haven't seen anything it's put out since Up, which was around the time Pixar started really leaning into sequels.
But it turns out my worries were for nothing, as Coco really is a sweet, fun movie. And while I think it could probably do with a smoother first act, the film as a whole gets into some really

NASA is getting really good at squeezing every last bit of life out of its hardware. It recently extended the Dawn spacecraft’s mission over Ceres for a second time, while New Horizons is on its way to check out a small icy body called 2014 MU69 in January 2019. Yesterday, NASA announced that it has successfully fired up four of Voyager 1’s backup thrusters, which haven’t been used since 1980, which should extend its life by a couple of years.Voyager 1 is the only human-made ob

Dames Making Games is a Toronto-based arts nonprofit that focuses on creating an inclusive community for video game developers, particularly those who are transgender, nonbinary (not identifying as only a man or woman), and women. Since the start, its home has been Gamma Space, a coworking and event space for indie devs. Unfortunately, Gamma Space announced that it will be closing at the end of this year.
“It’s a major blow, but we knew the day would come that our lease would be up a

Cyber Monday may have ended five days ago, but there’s still a ton of great deals you can get at major online retailers. We’ve combed through our favorites and rounded up the 40 best tech deals you can still buy, including laptops, speakers, and gaming.
Highlights include $115 off the DJI Spark, $20 off the new Fire TV with 4K Ultra HD and Alexa Voice Remote (today only, Saturday, December 2nd), and $200 off the newest version of the Microsoft Surface Pro.
HeadphonesSony Noise Cancel

Have you ever been to an IKEA concept store? If you’ve ever visited one, you were part of one big experiment. The Swedish company has been using these concept centers for something you wouldn’t expect. Not long ago, I visited one near my hometown. Yours truly naively thought they’d be selling ‘concept’ furniture… Nothing could be further from the truth. All your movements and actions are meticulously monitored while you think you’re just browsing the s

Google Assistant can be found in a growing range of devices, but only two wireless headphones — the Bose QuietComfort 35 II and Google Pixel Buds — are made especially for hands-free interaction with Google’s AI assistant to do things like create reminders, get calendar updates, and perform a multitude of other tasks.
Each pair of headphones are beset with advantages and drawbacks.
The Bose QuietComfort 35 II were released in September and retail for $329. The Google Pixel Buds

Here’s the thing about home security systems: they are expensive, usually require experts to install them, and for the good ones you’ll need to pay a monthly fee starting at $30 to have a company monitor them. While they won’t provide the same level of security as a professionally installed system from ADT or Slomin, the current wave of smart home cameras released by companies such as Nest, Logitech, and even Amazon have made security systems cheaper and easier to install and m

GUEST: Until this week, many people had never heard of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB). Then it became part of a dramatic showdown between advocates and critics of regulation, as two individuals with dramatically different worldviews each claimed to be the bureau’s acting director. On Tuesday a judge sided with the Trump Administration, enabling the president’s budget director Mick Mulvaney to serve as acting CFPB director until a permanent replacement gets named next

As the week draws to close, it’s definitely been a long one for Apple’s software engineers. The nightmare started on Tuesday, after a Twitter user disclosed a critical security vulnerability for macOS High Sierra that allowed anyone with physical access to a Mac to gain system administrator privileges without even entering a password. As software bugs go, this one was embarrassing and critical, but Apple managed to fix it less than 24 hours after it was publicly disclosed.
“Sec

Sony’s annual fan event, the PlayStation Experience, is right around the corner, and it looks like a big reveal is in store for PlayStation VR (PSVR).
This week the company revealed the panels that will run throughout the show, and PSVR is kicking things off at 11 a.m. on Saturday, December 9. There, Sony will host a “PlayStation VR Game Panel,” but the description suggests something big is going to be revealed beforehand.
“We can’t wait to tell you more a

Wouldn’t it be awesome if you could just blindly throw some money into a pool and magically make good returns? Well, that’s kind of what’s currently happening with ICOs (also known as token sales) and this is evident from two data points — the initial token sale price and current sale price (analogous to traditional company shares). ICOs are clearly on the rise and they’re steadily moving into the realms of the Venture Capital industry, threatening to take its plac

Apple is taking the highly unusual step of releasing a significant iOS update today, just hours after an iOS 11 bug started crashing iPhones. A bug in iOS 11.1.2 started causing iPhones to crash if third-party apps use recurring notifications for things like reminders. Apple is releasing iOS 11.2 today, which addresses the issue and includes a number of new features. Apple usually releases iOS updates on a Tuesday, so this appears to have been issued early to fix the crash bug.
iOS 11.2 is a big

A bug in iOS 11.1.2 is causing iPhones to crash repeatedly once the clock hits 12.15am on December 2nd. As noted by iMore and Twitter engineer Yoshimasa Niwa, the bug appears to be related to third-party apps that use recurring local notifications for things like reminders.As such, you have two immediate options to stop the crashes if you’re finding yourself affected: turn off notifications, or set your date back to some point in time before December 2nd, 2017. You can also use the public

The battle for net neutrality is ramping into high gear, as we anticipate an FCC vote on December 14 to either confirm or reject Chairman Pai’s draft order to undermine the 2015 Open Internet Order. With the future of the Internet, its capacity to continue fostering innovation, and freedom of expression online hanging in the balance, EFF encourages Internet users to speak out–both online and in the streets–to defend net neutrality.
Remote actions
You can can help defend net neu

Always willing to up the stakes of an already difficult situation, SpaceX CEO Elon Musk has said the first flight of his company’s Falcon Heavy rocket will be used to send a Tesla Roadster into space. Musk first tweeted out the idea on Friday evening, but has since separately confirmed his plans with The Verge.
The first Falcon Heavy’s “payload will be my midnight cherry Tesla Roadster playing Space Oddity,” Musk wrote on Twitter, referencing the famous David Bowie song.

Sounds like someone wants to break free: Fox has suspended filming on its upcoming Freddie Mercury biopic because, last we checked, the show can't go on without its director.
According to The Hollywood Reporter, the film's high-profile helmer, Bryan Singer, "failed to return to set after the Thanksgiving holiday break, leaving producers nervous about the state of the production and talking about potentially replacing him."
Fox confirmed the production delay in a statement to Mashable: "Twentieth

It's the end of the month, and you're furiously uploading receipts to submit to your employer for reimbursement. It's been a busy few weeks — too many Lyft trips to count — so you have a lot to expense. Thankfully, the online reporting platform you use employs some kind of fancy schmancy AI to automatically detect how much you spent and where you spent it, changing emailed and crumpled paper receipts into digital reports with ease. 
Or, so you think, anyway. But like the famed 1

This watershed moment in acknowledging and acting on allegations of sexual harassment has rightfully extended beyond Hollywood, but there's a reason we're still calling it The Weinstein Effect. Now, advocacy group Women in Film (WIF) is taking steps to ensure victims in the entertainment industry continue to be heard.
SEE ALSO: Why apologies for sexual misconduct will never be enough
Today they launched a help line — available at (323) 545-0333 Monday through Friday, 10am-5pm PST — f

We've all been there. You have your assignment printed and ready to go, but are frantically scribbling down last minute additions in the desperate hope that you'll get a passing grade.
This was OK in high school English class, but what about in the U.S. Senate? 
After several failed attempts to repeal and replace Obamacare, Senate Republicans are really doing everything they can get a legislative win once and for all with their tax plan—including making hasty and nearly illegible hand

Back in the innocent days of December 2015, some critics of The Force Awakens believed the movie to be a "remake" of the original 1977 Star Wars. 
These people were wrong — one desert planet orphan does not a remake make — and we obsessives at Mashable took the time to prove this with a shot-by-shot comparison.
SEE ALSO: 'Star Wars' vs. 'The Force Awakens': The ultimate comparison
Still, as is often the case with reductive reasoning, the "remake" label stuck in the mind of many

(Reuters) — Samsung Electronics’ $8 billion purchase of automotive and audio electronics company Harman has given the technology conglomerate confidence to chase more big deals, its strategy chief said on Friday.
Young Sohn, the South Korean company’s Silicon Valley-based president and chief strategy officer, said he was keen for world’s top maker of memory chips, smartphones and televisions to expand in automotive markets, digital health and industrial automation.
Samsun

Tons of auto companies are changing up their vehicle designs to feature electric systems instead of internal combustion engines — but for the most part, the cars look the same as their gas-powered counterparts. 
SEE ALSO: Fisker claims it will build an electric car that charges in 1 minute
Sondors, a crowdfunded auto startup, is looking to shake up the scene at the LA Auto Show with a three-wheel design that could give short-distance commuters a low-cost alternative to pricier (but ra

Cryptocurrency has an uncertain future, but the digital ledger powering most of their transactions is here to stay. Granted, cryptocurrency probably is too, but this isn’t meant to be a rant about dot com-era bubbles — we can argue about it on Twitter thought, come at me. The benefits offered by blockchain are numerous, and each passing day brings an ever-more-creative way to use it. I’ll leave it to you to decide if CryptoKitties is one of them. CryptoKitties are basically 20

The camera fades in on a man in bowler hat sitting in a chair, half cast in shadow. His gloved hand grips his chestnut hair in frustration as he gazes on the photo of a victim. He sighs as he leans forward, his face now illuminated, revealing our protagonist and a 2nd pair of eyes staring out from his hat.
It's a-me, Mario. And it's-a my partner, Cappy.
The new Mario game has some serious film noir vibes. Fans on Twitter have been picking up on the crooked stink of New Donk City since the game c