Technology news

Everybody who has dealt with any minor amount of stress has had the fantasy of packing up and running away from all of their problems, disappearing from the modern world almost entirely.
Erik Hagerman, dubbed "The man who knew too little" by The New York Times, did just that. On Saturday, Hagerman was the focus of a newly published profile describing how, after the election of Donald Trump, he left his busy life behind and started up his own pig farm.
SEE ALSO: I went to a self-esteem workshop f

Sony is back in Austin this week for SXSW, the annual tech and entertainment meet-up, with a entire warehouse of weird gadgets, games, and prototypes that all rely, in one way or another, on Sony technology. The exhibit, called the Wow Factory, is an opportunity for the Japanese tech giant’s engineers and artists to collaborate on experimental projects.These projects are meant to emphasize how Sony’s display technology, particularly its advancements in image sensors and projectors,

Apple is giving the logo for its MFi program a refresh, offering manufacturers 90 days three new designs to work with, reports ChargerLab.Launched in 2005, the MFi Program is a licensing scheme for third-party manufacturers to ensure that their accessories are compatible with Apple’s various products. Companies have to go through testing to adhere to Apple’s standards, and can use a logo to advertise that their products can work with iPods, iPhones, and iPads. Image: Apple
Apple is

Friday went poorly for a select group of Twitter users that have earned a reputation for their expertise  at gaming the system.
The social media company moved to suspend a number of popular accounts with millions of followers between them, Buzzfeed reports. Their offense? Stealing people's tweets without credit and conspiring as a group to share tweets — their own, and those of paying customers — with the intent of forcing them to go viral.
SEE ALSO: Twitter’s murky verifi

Peter Thiel’s data mining company Palantir Technologies has won a US Army contract to develop an intelligence platform that will replace an aging system that the Army currently used to collect and disseminate information, according to Bloomberg Technology.The Army will pay Palantir and defense contractor Ratheon $876 million over the next decade to develop a replacement for the Distributed Common Ground System, says Bloomberg. That system is used by the various branches of the US military

It's hard to imagine that there's anything ABC wouldn't allow on critical darling Black-ish after several successful seasons, but a new story in Variety reports that a February episode was shelved due to "creative differences" between the network and show runner Kenya Barris. 
SEE ALSO: Where are the mainstream TV shows about American Indians?
The episode was reportedly shot in November and scheduled to air at the end of February, with a story that follows Dre (Anthony Anderson) as he impro

In the future, all your air hockey games could be in augmented reality.
Now, thanks to Sony, we have an idea of just how cool that could be. The company was demoing a new augmented reality air hockey concept at SXSW, and it was impressively fun.
SEE ALSO: Augmented reality dinosaurs are here thanks to 'Jurassic World Alive'
Officially called "A(i)R Hockey," the concept combined Sony's light projection tech and haptic sensors to create a next-level air hockey game. 
The game, which supports

Ever wonder how much fun it would be to roll around in a hamster ball?
It’s hell.
SEE ALSO: Samsung Galaxy S9 and S9+ review: The Android phones to beat
At SXSW, my colleague Karissa Bell and I got to experience this fun activity at Sony's Wow Studio activation thanks to the power of cameras, projections, and a Microsoft Kinect sensor (RIP).
We weren't actually inside of any giant see-through balls, but it sure felt that way.
In one of the "Interactive Cube" installation's demos called "Ro

Amazon's Alexa smart home assistant just got a little bit smarter and a little bit easier to talk to.
Alexa-enabled devices have been updated to allow users follow up with a second question for Alexa without needing to say "Alexa" again, CNET reported Friday, allowing for a more natural conversation.
SEE ALSO: Amazon Alexa's creepy, spontaneous laugh is weirding people out
The new feature is called Follow-Up Mode, and it has to be enabled by users before it can be used.
Devices like the Echo and

Warning: This post contains spoilers for Jessica Jones Season 2.
Marvel's Jessica Jones has been a revelation for women ever since it premiered in 2015. Not only did it present us with a deeply flawed and traumatized protagonist, it dealt with her history and insecurities head-on.
In Season 2, we still have a host of varied, complicated women; from Carrie Ann Moss's struggling Jeri Hogarth to Rachael Taylor's unraveling Trish to our newest character, played by Janet McTeer. It's a pivotal role w

HAL-9000, the malevolent supercomputer at the heart of Stanley Kubrick’s classic 2001: A Space Odyssey, is an icon of science fiction cinema. So much so, that if you ask any one of the virtual assistants to “Open the pod bay doors,” they’ll dutifully parrot HAL’s lines from the movie back at you. Now, Master Replicas Group wants to take that step a bit further, turning HAL into a virtual assistant that can control your home.The company name might be familiar to pro

Another Game Boy case for your phone has popped up on the market, this time from Wanle Cases. The slim case, which snaps onto the back of an iPhone 6, 6S, 6 Plus, 7, 7 Plus, 8, 8 Plus, or X, comes loaded with 10 games and has the familiar Game Boy controls layout.
Wanle’s case taps into a certain nostalgia, built with an old-school screen and pre-loaded with retro titles like Tetris, Tank, Formula One Racing, and Snake and Block. It’s unclear from the company’s website if you&

Scientists have found a new type of water known as Ice-VII from diamonds deep in the Earth's crust. This type of ice is about 1.5 times as dense as what we're used to (Ice I), with a different atomic composition similar to what's most commonly found on ice moons orbiting Jupiter or Saturn.
SEE ALSO: Finding alien life won't cause chaos and panic, according to scientists
As the name implies, there are several types of ice that distinguish our common variety of frozen water from Ice-VII, each more

This week, The Vergecast is in Austin, Texas for South by Southwest 2018 in front of a live audience. Nilay, Dieter, Casey, and Ashley run through the news and share their expertise about Google’s new plan to make the web faster, using Samsung’s Galaxy S9, and Android P for developer testing. If you wanted to see the show, sorry you missed it! But good news for you, I recorded it so you can listen to it whenever you want.
You should do that now here.
And here’s the articles di

Earlier this year, a space startup from Silicon Valley launched four of its first prototype communications satellites on top of an Indian rocket. Except the FCC says that the company didn’t have authorization to send up those spacecraft from the US government, IEEE Spectrum reports. It would seemingly mark the first time a US private company launched un-licensed satellites into orbit — and these rogue spacecraft could pose a danger to other objects in space.
The four satellites repo

Flippy the burger-flipping robot is already on break just one day after it started working at CaliBurger.
Flippy, a robot produced by Miso Robotics, made its debut at a CaliBurger restaurant this week, where it was brought in to flip burgers and replace humans. After one day, it looks like CaliBurger has put the robot on unpaid leave while it figures out how best to work side-by-side with the job-stealing automaton, USA Today reported Friday.
SEE ALSO: Boston Dynamics tried to prevent ‘Spo

The ongoing saga between Sony and Microsoft’s cross-play battles has taken another twist today. Epic Games originally announced cross-play and cross-progression earlier this week between the PlayStation 4, PC, Mac, iOS, and eventually the Android versions of the game. While Microsoft’s Xbox One was missing from the list, the company revealed last night that it will support cross-play on Fortnite for Xbox and that it will be available in the future.
Unfortunately, that cross-play won

Don't call it a comeback – well, maybe do. 
Following the backlash over her beheaded Trump photo in 2017, Kathy Griffin said that her career was over. Griffin was fired from CNN and denounced by politicians and celebrities alike. Many of her 2017 performances were canceled, but Griffin will return to to the stage in 2018.
"I'm dipping my toes into touring again even though the Trumps and nobody wants me to work again," she said on Real Time with Bill Maher. "I just booked today, I'm g

The Sims series has always been a game meant for long stretches of sitting, whether you’re clicking away on your computer or swapping decor ideas with a friend on your couch. It’s not a difficult game, but it does expect players to invest time into its expansive systems built around character design, home building and decorating, and social simulation. With the new mobile version, released this week, developer Maxis has expertly streamlined the experience into something that feels p

In the past month more than 4000 websites, including government websites in the US and UK, such as the UK’s Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO), were reported to be serving the CoinHive crypto miner to its users. CoinHive crypto miner is a JavaScript script that can be installed on any website and was designed to mine cryptocurrency at the expense of its users’ CPU power. Clearly this was not the intention of any of the companies affected. Indeed, the ICO is an independent

You can learn a lot about a person based on where they fall in life's big debates: Coke vs. Pepsi, Triscuit vs. Wheat Thins, Taylor Swift vs. Katy Perry.
But there is one question that is perhaps the most decisive, the most controversial, the most revealing of what type of person you are: What is your favorite Trash Pizza?
SEE ALSO: This baby trying pizza for the first time is the essence of joy
Let's get this out of the way — pizza is a gotdamn national treasure.
If I had a Personal

In the grand cosmic scale, humanity and our tiny home in the universe are absolutely inconsequential. In a neat time-lapse video from John Boswell, you can watch the formation and growth of the universe from the big bang to now.Boswell, aka melodysheep, has made a name for himself over the years creating songs by autotuning scientists like Neil deGrasse Tyson and Carl Sagan and the cast of Stranger Things on YouTube. This new video is a bit like a short documentary about the formation of the un

Black Panther has officially hit $1 billion worldwide after just four weeks in theaters.
According to a release from Disney, Black Panther is the third-biggest superhero movie domestically, behind The Dark Knight ($534.9 million, and Panther is already at $530.9 as of March 10) and The Avengers ($623.4 million).
SEE ALSO: 5 reasons why ‘Black Panther’ scored big with fans and critics
With those numbers, Black Panther will easily outstrip The Dark Knight, most likely by the end of Sat

Legendary Dark Souls streamer The Happy Hob has done the impossible: He beat all three Dark Souls games in one sitting without taking a single hit.
SEE ALSO: How democracy beat 'Dark Souls'
Yes, that's correct. After an entire year of practice and attempts, The Happy Hob beat Dark Souls 1, 2, and 3 on Thursday without getting hit by any enemies. He completed the run in reverse order, starting with the third game and then playing the second and finally the first, finishing the final boss with a c

In the tech industry, the theory goes that Apple doesn’t go to trade shows anymore because it dominates the news cycle even when it doesn’t show up. The same goes for Tesla, which — despite caving and bringing its shiny new Model 3 to the LA Auto Show last fall — predictably skipped this week’s Geneva Motor Show.The difference with this particular show, more than others past, is that it was filled to the brim with clear, serious competitors to Tesla. And I don&rsqu

It's not easy to make an entire room full of movie fans scream in terror. But John Krasinski's A Quiet Place did just that Friday, thrilling the SXSW crowd with impeccably crafted scares, surprisingly effective drama, and one hell of a satisfying ending.
By the time the credits rolled, my hands hurt from clenching them so tightly. I let out a long breath I didn't know I'd been holding. And then I felt compelled to applaud, loudly, at what I'd just seen. Judging by the dazed looks on the faces of

The Syfy channel has released the first full trailer for its upcoming third season of The Expanse, teasing a solar system on the verge of all-out war between Earth, Mars, and the residents of outer planets.
Last month, the channel released a brief teaser that revealed that the show would return in April, and hinted that the crew of the Rosinante will have to come to terms with their various past mistakes as war looms. This new trailer shows off a bit more of what to expect: the crew dealing wit

Sometimes, you find a song that you love, only to discover that the music video that goes along with it is... not good. 
There's songs that we know would have weird music videos: ones that are already considered bad ("Friday" by Rebecca Black), meme-y ("Bring Me to Life" by Evanescence), or intentionally humorous ("What Does the Fox Say?" by Ylvis). But there's a section of songs that, while genuinely good and well-respected, were just cursed with bad music videos.
In order to save the inev

Samsung’s new flagship phones, the Galaxy S9 and S9+, have arrived, and although it’s not the biggest improvement since the S8, it’s still one of the best Android smartphones out there. There are plenty of places to preorder the new phone before its release on Friday, March 16th. If you’re looking for flexibility, your best option is direct with Samsung; you can get the phones unlocked at one of the lowest prices available at $719.99 for the S9 and $839.99 for the S9+. I

Instagram and Snapchat have each removed their Giphy sticker feature after a user discovered a racist GIF could be added to story posts, according to TechCrunch.
Instagram and Snapchat each added a Giphy integration to their stories features earlier this year, which allowed users to add GIFs from a library to their stories. Twitter user Lyauna Augmon posted a screenshot of the offensive image and tagged Instagram founder Kevin Systrom, demanding that it be taken down. The GIF reportedly appeare

Over the past 20 years, as the cellphone has transitioned from a buttoned-down soap bar to a world-conquering glass slab, one of the sad changes I’ve witnessed from up close has been the fading influence of Europe. Where once your choice of phone was among Nokia, Ericsson, Siemens, and others from the old continent, today only one of those brands remains, and it’s being operated under license. The truth of the mobile market now is that Europe is the flyover agglomeration of states b

UPDATE: March 10, 2018, 2:25 p.m. EST Giphy released a statement to Mashable apologizing for the offensive GIF. The story has been updated with the statement below.
Giphy is in hot water with Snapchat and Instagram after people spotted a racist and hateful GIF when searching for GIFs to use on the platforms.
SEE ALSO: Making GIFs just got way easier thanks to Google's keyboard app
Both social media platforms removed their Giphy integrations after learning of the issue, TechCrunch reported Friday

It's time to stop pouting over the Oscars and get hyped up for another excellent year in movies. Now that you've presumably seen Black Panther multiple times, start the spring off with Thoroughbreds, the most charming, arresting, and expertly fucked-up movie in quite some time.
Starring Olivia Cooke, Anya Taylor-Joy, and the late Anton Yelchin, Thoroughbreds is the story of childhood best friends Amanda and Lily, who reconnect as teens and comfortably indulge each other's darkest impulses.
SEE A

We all know about Jupiter's Great Red Spot, the extreme, Earth-sized storm that's been swirling on the huge planet for decades. 
But what about the world's other, less well known tempests?
A series of studies published in the journal Nature this week reveal new discoveries about the way that Jupiter's atmosphere functions and the storms that swirl within it. In particular, one of the studies details the nature of the cyclones spinning in the clouds of Jupiter's north and south poles. 

A pair of emperor penguins in Antarctica filmed themselves with a camera that had been left on the ice by an explorer.
In the short video, posted by the Australian Antarctic Division, you can see one penguin approach the camera, somehow flick it up so that it’s focused on its face, and then a second penguin joins. They both curiously stare down at the lens before losing interest. One of the penguins is even saying something — a vocalization I decided to interpret as, “Why are

Whether you’re traveling on a trip of a lifetime or just getting out of town for a couple of days, nobody wants to cart a bunch of unnecessary junk around. Travel light, travel smart is the mantra…and if you want to document your journey with your phone or with more advanced tech, TNW Deals has a pair of super-cool accessories that take that ideal to heart — both at major discounts right now. First, you can get amazing, steady photos or video anywhere, anytime with the Pakpod

Humans may have gotten pretty adept at solving Rubik's Cubes, but as usual, the machines are coming for us! This machine, invented by Ben Katz and Jared Di Carlo (humans!) can solve a Rubik's Cube in roughly half the time of the previous world record, and they claim it can "definitely go faster."
A video posted to Katz's YouTube channel shows the machine solving a cube in 0.38 seconds. Seriously, if you take a particularly luxurious blink, you'll miss it. The video slows down to 25 percent of th

"Publish or perish" is tattooed on the mind of every academic. Like it or loathe it, publishing in high-profile journals is the fast track to positions in prestigious universities with illustrious colleagues and lavish resources, celebrated awards and plentiful grant funding. Yet somehow, in the search to understand why women's scientific careers often fail to thrive, the role of high-impact journals has received little scrutiny.
One reason is that these journals don't even collect data about th

I was first introduced to the concept of a musical calculator when I watched a YouTuber who goes by the name “It’s a Small World” covering the Super Mario theme song with four calculators. Each numbered button corresponded to a musical note, and the mysterious musician (just watch her “face reveal“ video, she takes the genre to new heights like she’s the Bjork of YouTube) somehow memorized them all to create an 8-bit symphony.I found myself still thinking abo

A #dog channel is a must-have for many companies using communication app Slack. 
But for the Slack's internal communications manager Jared Schwartz, a place to upload dog photos wasn't enough. He needed somewhere his dog Oliver would get even more attention. Enter the #doodles channel, which joined the thousands of other Slack channels that more than 1,000 employees can navigate if they so choose. 
"We use Slack at a little bigger [scale] than most places. It may seem a little overwhel

Brain implants or other types of neural links, such as Brain Computer Interfaces (BCIs) between the brain, the internet, and the cloud, are quickly entering the realm of science rather than science fiction. The Defense Advanced Research Agency is ready to run trials with closed-loop mood control chips linked to AI that can deliver an electrical impulse to regulate a soldier’s mood. In the private sector, Elon Musk has announced Neuralink — a neurotechnology venture that will not onl