Technology news

Ava DuVernay is going to hire women, whether male directors like it or not. And if they don't? Well, they can go ahead and sue her.
While accepting the Woman of Vision award during Thursday's Gloria Awards, the Wrinkle in Time director told the audience that she'd once received a call from a male director during which he told her "there [had] been some complaints" about her favoring female directors for her show, Queen Sugar. Her own damn show!
SEE ALSO: Ryan Coogler wrote a lovely letter to 'A

It's Saturday – have any big plans? No? 
Great. Join us in looking at photos of the planets with professional pop star and amateur astronomer Ariana Grande. 
SEE ALSO: Ariana Grande references Manchester in uplifting 'No Tears Left To Cry' video
The artist fired off a few planetary appreciation tweets on Saturday morning, expressing first her admiration for Jupiter. 
"[N]othing is prettier than Jupiter," she wrote. True, I guess!pic.twitter.com/bQ5bs7K6vV
— Ariana Gran

Disney released seven new episodes from its Star Wars: Forces of Destiny series on May 4, the unofficial, annual Star Wars holiday. (May the fourth be with you. Get it?!) One episode in particular stands out for its connection to another recent Star Wars release.
The episode "Perilous Pursuits" retells a chase sequence that we first saw in the collection of deleted scenes included in Star Wars: The Force Awakens home releases. Set on the surface of Starkiller Base, the scene sees Rey and Finn es

The latest viral food dividing our nation? Pickle soft serve, which is available at Lucky Pickle Dumpling Co. in New York City.
The cold, hard truth behind pickle soft serve, though, is that it's more of a cucumber ice cream than anything else. Per Refinery29's profile of the dish, the primary ingredient is actually fresh-pressed, un-pickled cucumber. 
The dish's architects did add a hint of tanginess, though, which makes the ice cream taste like a "half-sour" pickle, or a pickle that hasn'

Don Gorske of Wisconsin is known for one thing only: his love of and devotion to the McDonald's Big Mac. On Friday, he reaffirmed that love when he chowed down on his 30,000th order.
Per Wisconsin's Fond du Lac Reporter, Gorske – who holds the Guinness World Record for Most Big Macs Consumed – ate his landmark burger at the same McDonald's franchise where he first tried the menu item back in the early 1970s.
SEE ALSO: Salads are better without the leaves
"This one is a biggie for me,

After years of conceptualization and development, the first Lightning implementations are now in beta. As a result, more nodes are appearing online every day, a growing number of users are opening channels with one another, and some merchants even started to accept Lightning payments. But of course, these are still the very early days of theLightning Network. While the main implementations are usable and some wallets and other applications are available, Bitcoin’s over

Marvel’s Avengers: Infinity War has broken another record: it’s become the fastest movie to cross the $1 billion mark at the global box office, overtaking the prior record-holder, Star Wars: The Force Awakens.Deadline reports that that the film reached this milestone in just 11 days: it took The Force Awakens 12 days in 2015. The film’s success thus far has allowed Disney to cross the $3 billion mark for its overall box office thus far in 2018. What’s notable here is tha

If you have your phone close at hand, open up emojiscavengerhunt.withgoogle.com and see how far you can get. As the URL suggests, it’s an emoji scavenger hunt — a new AI experiment created by Google that shows how the company’s machine learning tools can be used to make fun little games. In this case, you have to use your phone’s camera to find objects that match emoji within a time limit. Each one you find increases your time.
It’s a well-implemented little experi

Walking in on your parents having sex – or even just the prospect of that scenario – is a profoundly uncomfortable experience. But leave it to wise celebrity teen Willow Smith, offspring of Will Smith and Jada Pinkett Smith, to find some sliver of value in an otherwise awkward experience. 
As Taylor Ferber of Vulture reports, Willow revealed the whole awkward story to her mother and grandmother, Andrienne Banfield-Jones, during filming of the trio's upcoming Facebook Watch talk

Black Panther's Killmonger is a great villain partially because he's three-dimensional. His motivations genuinely make sense, and his complicated, tragic backstory makes him a sympathetic character, too.
On the commentary for the Black Panther Blu-Ray, director Ryan Coogler adds another detail to that backstory. We already knew that Killmonger's mother wasn't Wakandan — N'Jobu, Killmonger's father, met her in Oakland — but it wasn't clear what happened to her.
SEE ALSO: Deleted 'Blac

Right on the heels of Thursday's volcano eruption in Hawaii, a pair of earthquakes struck the state as residents contended with ongoing evacuations and noxious gas in the air.
The first, a 5.4-magnitude quake according to the United States Geological Survey, occurred at around 11:30 a.m. local time near the southern coast of Hawaii's Big Island, just south of Kilauea volcano. A second, 6.9-magnitude quake followed roughly an hour later.
SEE ALSO: 3D Image of Sierra Negra Could Help Us Understand

In today’s adorable-and-I’m-not-crying-you’re-crying news, NDTL reports that an engineer in New Delhi named Milind Raj saved a puppy using a drone he equipped with a giant claw.
Raj was out for a morning walk in New Delhi when he heard whimpering and traced the sound to a puppy that had become stuck in a boggy drain between two roads. Raj said the condition of the puppy was “miserable” and tells The Verge that local residents had heard the animal crying for two day

As a wide-eyed kid, did you think about a future with flying cars and personal domestic robots for everyone? We tend to see the future as a time full of opportunities and yet-to-be-discovered, society-altering inventions.   Think about The Jetsons. We’re still 44 years away from futuristic universe that the well-known show’s creators imagined in 1962 and it’s probably fair to say that they overestimated future change (though maybe when Amazon gives the Echo legs we’

Google will implement new transparency rules concerning US election ads this week. In a blog post, Google Senior Vice President Kent Walker says that anyone who wants to purchase election ads in the US will now be required to prove that they’re a US citizen or resident by providing a “a government-issued ID and other key information.”
Google also says that it will begin to release a new Transparency Report that will outline who is purchasing political ads, and how much they&rs

Two moving cars collided in Arizona on Friday. If one of them hadn't been fitted with Waymo self-driving tech, no one would have noticed.
The crash occurred in Chandler, Ariz. when a Honda sedan swerved into oncoming traffic to avoid another accident. It then struck the Waymo van, which the company claims was operating in manual mode — which means the human behind the wheel was in charge — at the time.
SEE ALSO: Here's what Waymo's electric, self-driving Jaguar looks like
A video cap

Though Tina Fey's Charlottesville sketch for Saturday Night Live is a couple thousand controversies in the past, the actress and comedy writer now admits she "screwed up" when she suggested people stay home and ignore white supremacists rather than protest their presence in person.
But first, a quick recap: After white supremacists descended on Charlottesville, Virginia in August 2017 for an alt-right rally that turned physically violent, Fey appeared on Saturday Night Live's "Weekend Update" an

Businessman Richard Guttfield came home from work recently to every pet owner's ultimate nightmare. An Amazon delivery driver had stolen Wilma, Guttfield's black miniature schnauzer, after dropping off a bag of dog food at Guttfield's home. 
Per CNBC, Guttfield had a difficult time getting Amazon to respond about Wilma's plight — that is, until he emailed CEO Jeff Bezos, a man whose sizable muscles are matched only by his love for lost miniature schnauzers. Apparently.
After Guttfield

Mother’s Day is next week and if you haven’t gotten anything for your mom yet, you’re cutting it pretty close. If she’s an athlete, a Samsung Gear Sport smartwatch is a great choice, and for a limited time you can get one for $70 off, plus a free strap. A smart home device like an Echo Show or a robotic vacuum is always a great option as well — bonus points if you set it up for her. Plus, the internet’s favorite pressure cooker / slow cooker, the Instant Pot,

Every few decades, a technological development leads us to believe that artificial general intelligence (aka strong AI) , the brand of AI that can think and decide like humans, is just around the corner. The excitement that follows is accompanied by fears of dystopian near-future and an arms-race between companies and states to be the first to create general AI. However, every time we thought we were closing in on strong AI, we have been disappointed. Badly. Every time, we spent a lot

Our nation's history is a treasure trove of great works of prose by our presidents, a collection of speeches and documents that can stand on their own but, taken together, also lay out the history of this great country.
SEE ALSO: Stormy Daniels is suing Trump for defamation over a tweet
The Declaration of Independence. 
George Washington's farewell address. 
The Gettysburg Address. 
FDR's "Day of Infamy" speech. 
JFK's inaugural address. 
Barack Obama's 2004 convention s

Even at the weakest and most embattled moment in its history, Facebook still seems inescapable. It’s impossible to leave, as Sarah Jeong detailed last week, and it seems even harder to fix. Facebook has rolled out products like Clear History to deal with data privacy complaints and new ad transparency measures to deal with influence campaigns. But so far, no one’s suggested anything that will make it any easier to leave Facebook or to pare back its role in our lives. If your complai

For a company as big and sprawling as Google, an annual developer conference can feel overwhelming. And, frankly, it is. Google offers a dizzying number of services and dabbles in almost every consumer tech industry under the sun, not to mention the 7 billion-plus user core internet products it owns and operates. But the company has a measured tempo when it comes to Google I/O, and we’ve come to understand how it prioritizes certain products over others come May every year.At this year&rs

In the wake of the Cambridge Analytica scandal, all eyes are on Facebook and its data privacy practices. From policy-makers to financial markets, the reactions have been surprise and disapproval. Yet, collecting and monetizing user data has been standard modus operandi for the majority of today’s technologies. Email providers, cellular networks, workplace collaboration apps, social media, credit monitoring, etc. – nearly all are powered by the ‘data contract’ we as users

NASA's InSight lander and two tiny satellites are on their way to Mars.
An Atlas V rocket — which also launched NASA's Curiosity rover to the red planet — lofted the payload into space on Saturday at 7:05 a.m. ET from California's Vandenberg Air Force Base. 
SEE ALSO: Tiny satellites named Wall-E and Eva are about to take a trip to Mars. Will they survive?
The InSight lander, designed to unlock the secrets of Mars' interior, will spend about six months traveling to Mars, trailed

Forget selfie sticks. There's now a more efficient and socially acceptable way of taking photos, and it comes in the form of Picbot. It's a motorized smartphone mount that utilizes face tracking technology to help you capture next-level pictures and videos — or finally live out your dreams of becoming a YouTube sensation.
SEE ALSO: 10 of the best instant cameras based on internet reviews
Successfully funded on Kickstarter, Picbot puts an end to all your smartphone photography and videograp

Having a touch screen smartphone is basically our natural state at this point. And although touch screens are easy to use when your eyes and hands are free, they’re challenging and/or unsafe when you’re in the middle of cooking, driving, or holding your kid while trying to simultaneously change the song or send an important text. (We all know we shouldn’t do this, but it happens.)
SEE ALSO: Prime members can save $100 on a certified refurbished Amazon Echo
Fortunately, the futu

Coworkers and friends alike have told me I’ve been sending smiles wrong. When I send a smile, I type (: not :) For years I thought the recipients of my smiles would be happy to receive a tiny bit of digital love from me. Apparently, this isn’t the case. Apparently, there was an emoticon class called “How to express emotion and if you don’t do it this way you’re a terrible person” everyone was invited to and I wasn’t. APPARENTLY, we all want to nitpick e

A new wave of companies is coming which will view the sharing of revenue with their users as natural part of doing buisness. This vision is fixed in code, written down in smart contracts on a blockchain protocol. These contracts automatically secure and execute the vision, and the operation of the company. I believe that in due time, these companies could sprout new economic models, empowered by its tech and a vision for a more fairer world. Although the dominant platforms Facebook, Youtube, Go

Update May 5th, 8:35AM ET: United Launch Alliance successfully launched its InSight lander this morning from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California, which will now head off to Mars to conduct its mission when it arrives in November 2018.NASA’s next robotic explorer is beginning its deep-space voyage to Mars. The lander InSight is set to take off from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California in the wee hours of Saturday morning, the beginning of a six and a half month journey to the Red Pl

420 was a while ago, but the internet is still buzzed. This time, it's off a meme. 
The "I get high on" meme has Twitter fans bypassing drugs, and going straight for the things they love, whether it's part of their favorite songs or scenes for incredible movies. 
SEE ALSO: The 'build the perfect man' meme is a troll-y masterpiece
Who needs weed when you have "Africa" by Toto to get you hyped?i get high on:⚪️ life⚪️ drugs🔘 Africa by Toto
— Plathan