Technology news

Valve has gone ahead and quietly hidden a link to its Steam Machines webpage from the Steam store itself, a move indicative of the ill-fated project to push a console-like transition for gaming PCs in the living room. The move, noticed by PC Gamer today, doesn’t mean Steam Machines can no longer be purchased. You can still find the live link here, and you can even purchase the recommended Alienware Alpha Steam Machine from Dell if so choose, as well as the Valve-designed SteamOS controlle

The dating app Grindr has been sharing data on whether its users have HIV with two outside companies, according to BuzzFeed and the Norwegian research nonprofit SINTEF.Grindr users — which include gay, bi, trans, and queer people — can indicate on their profile whether they are HIV positive or negative, when is the last time they got tested, and whether they’re taking HIV treatment or the HIV-preventing pill PrEP. But the app has not been keeping this info private: Grindr has

Samsung’s latest additions to its line of laptops include the new Notebook 3 and Notebook 5, cheaper variants of the existing Notebook 7 Spin and Notebook 9 models. The company hasn’t released pricing for the devices yet. However, we can expect them to come in under the $1,199.99 Notebook 9, the updated version of which launched last month, and likely lower in price than the recently updated 2-in-1 Notebook 7 Spin, which comes out later this year.The Notebook 3 will come with 14- or

If you’re seeing a 500 internal server error while visiting YouTube today, you’re not alone. The company confirmed via Twitter at 3:27PM ET that channel pages were down, though individual videos could still be watched.
YouTube initially said that the error was only affecting some channels, but it’s since pulled a tweet with that clarification. There don’t seem to be any channels that are still up.
Keep in mind this is only affecting main channel pages. All individual vid

If you’re seeing a 500 internal server error while visiting YouTube today, you’re not alone. The company confirmed via Twitter at 2:27PM ET that channel pages were down, though individual videos could still be watched.
YouTube initially said that the error was only affecting some channels, but it’s since pulled a tweet with that clarification. There don’t seem to be any channels that are still up.
Keep in mind this is only affecting main channel pages. All individual vid

The Environmental Protection Agency is calling for a reduction of greenhouse gas emissions standards for model year 2022-2025 cars and light trucks. The agency said today that the standards — which were put in place by the Obama administration in 2012 — are “not appropriate and should be revised.” The move brings to bear a fight that has been brewing since the earliest days of the Trump administration, when the president called the regulations “out of control&rdquo

Grindr has a communication problem. 
The social networking app used by 3.6 million people has been doing more than simply facilitating hookups, and in the process has potentially put the privacy of its users at risk. 
SEE ALSO: This new Grindr feature could persuade users to regularly get tested for HIV
According a report from BuzzFeed News, the company is sharing user data with two other companies — data that includes email addresses, GPS data, phone IDs, and HIV statuses. Taken

Update April 2nd, 4:50PM ET: SpaceX successfully launched its Falcon 9 rocket on time today, which then deployed the company’s Dragon capsule into orbit. This marks the 11th mission in which SpaceX has flown a rocket that has already gone to space and back.Just three days after sending 10 communications satellites into orbit from California, SpaceX is launching again, this time out of Cape Canaveral, Florida. The company is launching one of its previously flown Falcon 9 rockets, which wil

You don't have to look too hard on Reddit to find anti-Trump subreddits, but somewhere in between r/TrumpForPrison and r/EnoughTrumpSpam, a new sub has risen up to firmly plant a wry tongue in the cheek of the current administration. 
The_Mueller is a subreddit completely dedicated to spreading memes and disseminating news related to special counsel Robert Mueller III's investigation exploring possible ties between Russia and Trump's 2016 campaign and possible obstruction of justice from th

Software tycoon turned cryptocurrency enthusiast John McAfee recently revealed that he charges $105,000 for each tweet he sends out promoting digital coins or initial coin offerings (ICO). Last week, McAfee tweeted that his team had written up a guide on how his promotional tweets worked, and posted it to McAfee Crypto Team, an organization McAfee and his team put together to promote ICOs.“It’s self-aggrandizing and ego-stroking for us,” he wrote, “However, if you’

Toilet seats tend to be very uniform: the standard porcelain white. Snoresville. 
So naturally, when one UK mum purchased what she thought was a bright blue toilet seat at IKEA, she was initially hesitant to introduce it into her powder room. But after considering it, she became super excited and showed it off to her daughter. 
SEE ALSO: IKEA's menu of the future includes bug meatballs
Her daughter, Amber, however, took a closer look at the label on the toilet seat and ruined her mom's

The loss of Arctic sea ice is one of the clearest signs of human-caused climate change, and there's been nothing but blinking red alarms coming from the top of the world lately. The past four winters have seen such anemic sea ice growth that they've been the lowest four maximum sea ice extents since 1979. 
At the same time, the region’s climate has seen temperatures increase at more than twice the rate of the rest of the world, with record-shattering seasons becoming more common.
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Scientists using the Hubble Space Telescope have spotted the most distant star ever studied thanks to some cosmic luck.
The star, named Lensed Star 1 (LS1 for short), was born about 9 billion years ago and is thought to be a huge, blue star with a surface temperature ranging from 11,000 degrees Celsius to 14,000 degrees Celsius. This makes the star more than twice as hot as our sun, NASA said in a statement.
Under normal circumstances we wouldn't be able to see LS1 using even the most advanced t

Looks like it’s humans: 0, computers: 1 again. If you’re a big enough fan of ramen, maybe you can look at a photo of a tonkotsu bowl on Instagram and immediately recognize which restaurant it’s from. But computers have us beat, as they can now identify the exact shop a menu item came from, out of 41 seemingly identical bowls of ramen from the same restaurant franchise.
Data scientist Kenji Doi did the delicious research, using Google’s AutoML Vision to classify every men

The White House hosted its annual Easter Egg Roll on Monday, which is a 139-year-old tradition where children run through the White House South Lawn pushing eggs with long spoons. There's also a terrifying giant Easter bunny involved.
SEE ALSO: Mike Pence's daughter bought John Oliver's book about the VP's gay bunny
It's a strange tradition. 
Trump tweeted this video of his speech on Monday, where this year's monstrous rabbit loomed behind him. An honor to host the Annual @WhiteHouse E

Malaysia passed a new law today that would punish citizens on social media or those working at a digital publication for spreading fake news with a 500,000 ringgit ($123,000) fine and a possible a prison sentence of up to six years. Led by Prime Minister Najib Razak, the Anti-Fake News bill passed in parliament today despite opponents who had criticized the bill for possibly impeding free speech and attempting to censor the prime minister’s involvement in a multibillion-dollar scandal.
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Let’s state the obvious: We literally love our dogs more than we love most humans and wouldn’t trade them for anything. 
However, we can probably admit that some of our good boys and girls aren’t the best behaved — especially if they’re past that critical puppy training age or came from an abusive environment. But what are we gonna do? Send them back to the shelter or force them into behavior classes (that aren’t exactly cheap)? Hell no.
SEE

Waymo has been negotiating a partnership with Honda since late 2016, when the company was still housed within Google. But now those talks are nearing completion, according to Bloomberg. And rather than moving people, as was the focus of Waymo’s deals with Fiat Chrysler and Jaguar Land Rover, the partnership with Honda will focus on delivering goods.Waymo CEO John Krafcik wouldn’t reveal much, but the implication is that a deal should be announced soon. A Waymo spokesperson declined

Facebook Spaces is finally redesigning its avatars to look more like you, and less like a corny cartoon character. 
The company has added hundreds of new customization and control options to the virtual reality avatars, and has updated their depth and movement. The updates will roll out this week.
SEE ALSO: 3D posts on Facebook just got a lot better
The avatars look noticeably more three-dimensional than they did before, with additional depth and shading compared to their relatively flat pr

The Walking Dead is back and careening toward the conclusion of the “All Out War” saga. That means the end of the feud between Rick Grimes (Andrew Lincoln) and his arch-nemesis Negan (Jeffrey Dean Morgan) — and perhaps that’s a good thing. Thus far, the show’s big bet on Negan has been a bit of a misfire, with ratings hitting staggering lows last year, and Negan himself largely absent from the first half of the show’s eighth season.
But a season-ending climax

As usual, the Rick and Morty brand used an international day of pranks to pull some shit on fans. And it was, uh, not totally well received.
Dropping a surprise Rick and Morty episode on April Fools has become something of an Adult Swim tradition. Ever since co-creators Dan Harmon and Justin Roiland pulled a reverse-prank by dropping a legitimate episode of their long-awaited Season 3 on April 1 2017 without warning, fans have developed a pretty high standard for these kind of hijinks.
So when t

Facebook today announced a new suite of avatar customization options for Spaces, the company’s virtual reality hangout app that lets you chat with friends and partake in group activities in a digital space. Prior to today, Spaces allowed you to customize an avatar using only a small handful of options for features like hair color and style or eye shape, and you couldn’t customize features like body shape at all. Now, there are hundreds of new options. Spaces remains in open beta on

Acer’s thinnest all-in-one desktop, the Aspire S24, is available for purchase starting today. It’s a 23.8-inch all-in-one desktop powered by a Kaby Lake Intel Core i5 processor, an Intel graphics card, 12GB of RAM, and 1TB of storage.
The Aspire S24 also comes with a Qi charger and a free 30-day trial of Microsoft Office, which might be useful if you don’t already have the software. It runs Windows 10 and has a built-in speaker system built with Acer TrueHarmony and Dolby Audi

Apple might screw Intel over... starting in 2020.
The tech company is reportedly planning to ditch Intel's processors on its Macs and replace them with their own custom-designed chips, according to a report from Bloomberg.
SEE ALSO: Apple patent reveals a new crumb-resistant keyboard design for MacBooks
The report, sourced from the well-sourced Mark Gurman, says Apple executives have greenlit the plan, codenamed "Kalamata." 
The switch is apparently part of a plan to make Macs, iPhones, and

A ruling from a Los Angeles judge last week now means that in California, coffee companies like Starbucks must warn customers of a potentially cancer-causing chemical found in coffee. Naturally, this gave jitters to coffee makers and coffee drinkers alike — and renewed a centuries-old debate: Is coffee bad for you?
A nonprofit group, the Council for Education and Research on Toxics, sued 91 coffee companies for not warning consumers about a particular chemical produced when coffee beans a

Last year, 9to5Mac reported that Google was working on a budget version of its Pixel smartphone, which wouldn’t be sold in the US. Between then and now, the Pixel 2 launched with no budget phone to be seen, but a new report out of India claims the device is coming this summer.
The Economic Times reports that Google is working on a mid-range Pixel smartphone for “price-sensitive” markets, including India, that will be released in July or August, according to industry executives

In a major shift that carries big implications for both companies, Apple will reportedly replace Intel’s processors with the company’s own chips in Mac computers as soon as 2020, according to a new report from Bloomberg. The changeover is likely to begin with laptops such as the 12-inch MacBook. Intel’s stock price took a hit soon after the report was published; Bloomberg estimates that Apple provides approximately 5 percent of the chipmaker’s annual revenue. Aside from

The adult film actress Stormy Daniels, who may or may not have had an affair with the sitting U.S. president, has appeared in two Seth Rogen movies, Rogen said on Ellen. And she shared a little information about her affair that would take the public's attention 10 years later.
Rogen shared a story about how Daniels appeared in both Knocked Up and 40-Year-Old Virgin. During filming, Daniels said that she had an affair with Trump. Rogen said at the time it seemed pretty innocuous and didn't come a

Tesla has increased its production of its mass-market electric Model 3 to over 2,000 units per week, according to an email from Elon Musk obtained by several media outlets. It’s an impressive ramp up of production, but it still falls short of Musk’s goal of 2,500 Model 3s per week by the end of the first quarter of 2018.The news about Model 3 production comes at a crucial time for the automaker, which has seen its steepest monthly drop in stocks in seven years amid questions about t

How much thought do you put into picking out a keyboard? Chances are, not a lot. 
Admit it: With so many options out there, you're likely to buy the cheapest model or whatever your IT buddy recommends. But finding a keyboard that fits your lifestyle matters. Period. Whether you're writing a blog post or coding an app, you want to be able to comfortably type away — anytime, anywhere.
SEE ALSO: Turn your hand into a keyboard with this strap of sensor-equipped rings
That's what's so grea

This post contains spoilers for Isle of Dogs.Wes Anderson’s Isle of Dogs has some glaring flaws. But anyone with experience in (or even a cursory knowledge of) the institutions tasked with managing pet populations in the real world will tell you it got one thing right.
We treat dogs like disposable trash. And as a society, we’re astonishingly comfortable with their systemic abuse.
SEE ALSO: There's an extremely relatable hidden message in the title of 'Isle of Dogs'
When my dog was f

If Microsoft Office was Netflix, Word, Excel, and PowerPoint would be Stranger Things, Orange is the New Black, and Narcos. On the other hand, OneNote, Sway, Yammer, and basically the rest of the Office apps would be Sense8, Dear White People, and Ozark, because of the very fact that they are criminally underrated. These apps have probably never reached your radar, and that's a darn shame. But you can change that with the Pay What You Want: The Complete Microsoft Office Bundle.
SEE ALSO: Get you

Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School students are returning to campus after the March For Our Lives and a week-long Spring Break, but they have yet to adjust to the new security measures put in place.
After a mass shooting on Feb. 14 killed 17 people at the school, increased security precautions are being taken to ensure no acts of gun violence occur in the future. As of Monday, all students are being required to wear transparent backpacks, provided by the school, along with new student ID badge

European backpackers who have been missing their favorite Netflix shows can finally rest easy. 
A new EU regulation called the "Regulation on the Portability of Online Content Services" will allow any European citizens to access subscription services, including Netflix and Amazon Prime, that they've subscribed to at home, anywhere in the EU. 
SEE ALSO: This study broke down the psychology behind fonts using your favorite Netflix series
The regulation was initially passed in June, but t

Hey, Apple fans: If you missed out on holiday laptop deals or the MacBook Air sale at Best Buy this past week, don't get FOMO just yet — Best Buy is offering up to $200 off MacBook Pros now through April 8. 
We all know that the holidays are a great time to snag some new tech on sale — but when you're rushing around and trying to save on gifts for everyone else, it's easy to forget the stuff you want. But good news: This doesn't mean you're stuck with an old AF compute

Epic Games’ Fortnite is officially out of beta on mobile, meaning anyone with an iPhone SE / 6S or later running iOS 11 (or an iPad mini 4 / Air 2 or later) can download the game and jump into a match. Epic announced the news on its Twitter feed this morning. Previously, Fortnite on iOS was available in an invite-only beta period, though invites were generously given out and friends were able to invite up to three others to join the free-to-play platform. You can download the game from th

Every week, Lost in Space had a new story to tell.
I still remember watching old reruns of the 1960s series on WPIX 11 as a kid. The Robinson family's struggles to keep life comfy and happy while stranded on a distant alien world were captivating to my 10-year-old brain.
SEE ALSO: Wow, Netflix's 'Lost in Space' reboot series sure looks expensive
Every week was a new adventure, a new obstacle the family would have to overcome. There were constants in the friendship between Will Robinson and Robot

Apple has applied to patent a VR system for autonomous cars that would use interior screens and VR headsets to alter the interior of the vehicle, as reported by VentureBeat.
The patent, applied for in September 2017 and published last week, is framed as a way to “address problems with vehicles in motion that may result in motion sickness for passengers” by replacing views of the real world with virtual environments. On top of that, the patent proposes at least one VR controller that

It's 2018 and not only are people still reading Dr. Seuss books, they're rapping them.
Rapper Win Nevaluze gave the unsuspecting people of this world the hottest collaboration they never knew they needed, rapping the words from Dr. Seuss' iconic children's book, There's a Wocket in My Pocket, to Migos feat. Drake's track, "Walk It Talk It." 
It's not the first time we've seen a children's book rapped, but the "Walk It Like I Talk It" ad-libs by Jay Lava (aka ScatterBrains News) and Lord Jah