Technology news

Apple has unveiled a program to replace the batteries of some non-Touch Bar 13-inch MacBook Pros for free. The company says that a “limited number” have had their batteries expand.9to5Mac spotted the program, which will allow users to get the computer’s battery replaced for certain non-Touch Bar 13-inch MacBook Pro models. Apple notes that a small number of computers manufactured between October 2016 and October 2017 have a faulty component which causes the battery to expand.

Amazon is restricting users from posting reviews of former FBI Director James Comey’s new book, A Higher Loyalty: Truth, Lies, and Leadership, unless the reviewer has purchased the book through the retailer.
Deadline noticed the issue, noting that the restriction is in place for the print and Kindle editions, and that some low-rated reviews might have also been removed as well. A review on audiobook platform Audible, which is owned by Amazon, complains that the user’s prior review h

Welcome to Cheat Sheet, our brief breakdown-style reviews of festival films, VR previews, and other special event releases. This review comes from the 2018 Tribeca Film Festival.
It’s difficult to find funding, distribution, or even an audience for short films these days. Anyone can shoot a short and put it up online, and the competition from amateurs and free content is brisk enough to make any professional think twice about making a short for any reason except inspiration or fun. But fo

Pivotal has kind of a strange role for a company. On one hand its part of the EMC federation companies that Dell acquired in 2016 for a cool $67 billion, but it’s also an independently operated entity within that broader Dellfamily of companies — and that has to be a fine line to walk.
Whatever the challenges, the company went public yesterday and joined VMware as a  separately traded company within Dell. CEO Rob Mee says the company took the step of IPOing because it wanted add

San Francisco-based cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase has reportedly closed an account opened by whistleblowing site Wikileaks for its online store, citing violations of its Terms of Service.
The Wikileaks Shop is the whistleblower site’s merchandise outlet, selling shirts, phone cases, coffee mugs, posters, and other branded paraphernalia. Users can pay for their items with a credit card, or via a variety of cryptocurrencies. The exchange appears to have closed an account owned by the org

Ikea’s been working its way into the tech space for the past few years. It started with wireless chargers, got into smart lights last year, and now it’s moving into speakers. I’ve been trying out the company’s first two Bluetooth speakers for the past week, and they feel quintessentially Ikea in ways both good and bad.
The first two pairs of Ikea-made Bluetooth speakers went on sale earlier this month: the Eneby 20 and Eneby 30. They’re both big, minimal squares wi

The Ox, a slab-sided, flatpack vehicle designed to bring mobility to the developing world, just took one step closer to reality. Oil giant Shell announced recently that it would commission a pre-production prototype of the Ox that it will then bring to India to assist in outreach programs.The Ox first came on the scene in 2016. It was the brainchild of Torquil Norman, a philanthropist who runs the Global Vehicle Trust, and Gordon Murray, the South African engineer who helped create the McLaren

Westworld starts up again this weekend after a little more than a year away. I had a very love / hate relationship with the first season. I didn’t love the watching experience so much as I loved the meta experience of reading speculation about where the show was going, but I’m still really interested to see what happens this season.
In particular, I’m curious to see how the writers manage to work the same kinds of big, structural twists into the series that they did in season

Between robotic vacuums, voice-activated light switches and virtual assistants, the smart home tech business is booming. As smart home devices are becoming increasingly ubiquitous, a hub from which to control your various gadgets is a good idea. We liked Amazon’s Echo, the device that introduced Alexa, back when it was introduced in 2015 and many improvements have been made in the intervening three years. Amazon Echo is on sale for $84.99 (usually $99.99) and the smaller Echo Dot is down

Solo: A Star Wars Story hits theaters in just over a month. The standalone Star Wars film follows in the footsteps of Rogue One: a story that stands apart from the “saga” backbone of the franchise, ie, the story of the Skywalkers and their fight against the forces of evil in the galaxy. But unlike Rogue One, which featured a cast of brand-new characters to the franchise, Solo will focus on one of the franchise’s best-known characters: Han Solo.As we come closer to the film&rsq

North Korea will be pressing pause on its nuclear and missile tests this weekend in advance of summits with South Korea’s President Moon Jae-in next week and with Donald Trump sometime this spring, Reuters reports.The announcement, via state news agency KCNA, also included plans to shutter its nuclear test site, according to the Washington Post. But that doesn’t mean North Korea’s getting rid of the nuclear weapons that it has already developed, or that testing is done for goo

After a racial incident that garnered national attention last weekend, Starbucks has required racial-bias training for all its employees. This move has the potential to positively impact America, but the company has an uphill climb.
Here's what happened. On April 12 a patron at a Philadelphia Starbucks captured a video of two black men being arrested, seemingly for doing nothing. The store manager called the police, saying the men had not bought anything and refused to leave. It turns out they'd

Over the past several weeks, arrests of members from the purported self-help group Nxivm have revealed an underground web of heinous crimes, from sex slavery to pyramid schemes.
Reports and rumors about the groups connections to Hollywood actors were mounting. And on Friday, actress Allison Mack — best known for her roles on Smallville and Wilfred — was arrested on sex trafficking and forced labor charges.
SEE ALSO: The #MeToo men are getting their comeback tours. The women they hurt

The teen who marched alone last month, attracting the attention of the country, just got his classmates to join a student walkout in memory of the 15 victims of the 1999 shooting at Columbine High School.
Justin Blackman received massive support on social media last month for being the only student at his high school to participate in the nationwide walkout, part of movement led by Parkland survivors that called for lawmakers to pass stricter gun laws. Wow I’m literally the only one #

After years of languishing under Yahoo's (and, more recently, Oath's) ownership, Flickr has finally found a buyer.
Image hosting company SmugMug announced Friday that it'd acquired Flickr for an undisclosed sum. The acquisition, which was first reported by USA Today, comes as Yahoo's parent company, Oath, looks to slim down the company's holdings.Congrats to @DonMacAskill and his team @SmugMug on its deal to buy @Flickr - This is going to be a very good home for such an awesome service for the i

Ancheer electric scooter with suspension seat
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Short range • Slow acceleration • Heavy
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If you've got a short commute, and are willing to lug 40 pounds around, Ancheer's e-scooter for women is a great ride.Mashable Score4.0Cool Factor4.0Learning Curve5.0Performance4.0Bang for the Bu

For the first time, the US Food and Drug Administration has recommended approving a drug derived from cannabis. It’s an important step in acknowledging that the plant has a valid medical use, but will mean little without loosening the research restrictions that keep scientists from figuring out the other health effects of cannabis.The drug in question is Epidiolex, used to treat severe forms of epilepsy called Dravet syndrome and Lennox-Gastaut syndrome. Epidiolex includes cannabidiol (CB

Tribeca hosted a Westworld panel yesterday with an all-star lineup including co-creators Lisa Joy and Jonathan Nolan, as well as actors Evan Rachel Wood, Thandie Newton, Jeffrey Wright, and James Marsden. I’m sure the discussion of the upcoming new season was great, but we’re actually here to talk about the very end of the panel, when the moderator takes questions from the audience.Audience Q&As, a longtime staple of the panel format, offer attendees the chance to ask thoughtful

Flickr has been bought by professional photo hosting service SmugMug for an undisclosed price, according to a report from USA Today . The fate of Flickr has been up in the air as part of the ongoing decline of Yahoo, which was bought by Verizon last year $4.5 billion dollars and combined with AOL into Oath.Yahoo itself had bought Flickr back in 2005 for $35 million, but never really seemed to know what to do with the service up until the end, even as it tried various redesigns and new services