Technology news

North Korea’s official news agency has reported that the country has scheduled the demolition of the Punggye-ri nuclear test site ahead of talks with the United States next month.Reuters reports that official Korean Central New Agency says that the site will be decommissioned between May 23rd and 25th, which would include “collapsing all of its tunnels with explosions, blocking its entrances,” and shutting down all of its observation and security facilities. The announcement c

Maybe it was the smell of oil and machined metal coming from the jetpack on stage, or maybe it was because I was listening to the 10th different speaker in under three hours. But I was a little dizzy by the end of the Wall Street Journal’s Future of Transportation event that took place on Wednesday in Manhattan. When I got back out on the street and cleared my head, though, the first thing I thought to myself was: “wait a minute, did no one really talk about the future of public tra

At some point in your adult life, birthdays become less about cakes and presents, and instead about that time of year when you feel existential dread about getting older. But it’s not often my own birthdays that trigger thoughts about complexities of aging, but the ones that remind me about life itself.
My father was born on May 12th. Today he would have turned 56, had he not passed away in 1996. When I was in college, my family and I would visit our motherland in Bangkok over the summer

The yellow robot dogs that so unsettled people in February by opening a door for one another can now easily walk up and down stairs on their own. 
Boston Dynamics CEO Marc Raibert — who founded the robot company known for building machines that mimic real animal and human movements — said Friday at the TechCrunch Robotics Sessions conference at UC Berkeley that the robots, called SpotMini, will be ready for purchase in 2019.
While declining to offer a price on the 66-pound, rela

In January, science fiction and fantasy author Ursula K. Le Guin died at the age of 88, leaving behind an incredible body of work that has inspired generations of writers and readers. Le Guin is the subject of a forthcoming documentary by Arwen Curry, who just released a new trailer for the project.Curry kickstarted Worlds of Ursula K. Le Guin in 2016, and has been working on the project ever since. Earlier this week, she released a trailer for the documentary, which will use archival footage a

Snapchat's continuing implosion is Instagram's gain.
As more users flock to Instagram, primarily to share Stories, the Facebook-owned company is testing a long list of new features that'll further accelerate growth and leave Snapchat in its dust.
SEE ALSO: All the new rumored Instagram features that might kick Snapchat's ass
A couple of weeks ago developer Jane Manchun Wong shared a list of new, unreleased Instagram features the app was privately testing. Then, on Saturday, Wong unloaded even mo

Last week I finally got around to seeing Last Flag Flying now that it’s streaming on Amazon. It’s Richard Linklater’s latest film, and while I’m a huge fan of his stuff, trailers for Last Flag Flying didn’t exactly make me feel like I had to leave my warm apartment in November to make it out to a movie theater to see it right away.
I did enjoy it, though. And the movie makes a ton of sense coming from Linklater — much of the film is extended sequences of peop

YouTube Red jumped on the remake bandwagon last fall with a series order for a Karate Kid sequel called Cobra Kai. The 10-episode first season debuted earlier this month on the paid service, and earlier this week, YouTube revealed that it was renewing the show for a second season.The show follows Johnny Lawrence (William Zabka) when he reopens the Cobra Kai karate dojo and restarts his rivalry with Daniel LaRusso (Ralph Macchio), picking up 30 years after the events of the original 1984 film. L

It’s Mother’s Day weekend! Hopefully you got your mom something already, but if you’re still looking for a last-minute Mother’s Day gift, Sony discounted their gorgeous glass speaker for the occasion. It was designed for Sony’s Life Space UX series of products, which focuses on aesthetically pleasing gadgets that blend in with your home decor. The Glass Sound Speaker is very pretty, with a glass cylinder that not only pushes out sound in a more natural-sounding fre

Brooklyn Nine-Nine isn't going anywhere.
After Fox abruptly cancelled the sitcom on Thursday, NBC stepped up the next day to announce plans for a 13-episode sixth season. It's not clear when the new episodes will air, but fans can at least rest easy in the knowledge that the show will have an opportunity to deliver a sense of closure.
SEE ALSO: What is Finder Spyder: An investigation.
That's not to say Brooklyn Nine-Nine's newly confirmed sixth season will necessarily be its last. NBC Entertainm

On Thursday, Spotify announced that it would begin to refrain from promoting artists it deemed performing “hate content” or “demonstrate hateful conduct personally” on its company-curated playlists. This includes artist R. Kelly, who has been accused over the years of sexual misconduct. Pandora and Apple Music have now taken similar steps to deemphasize artists.Pitchfork reported that Apple quietly began to pull R. Kelly from some of its curated playlists prior to Spotif

On Thursday, Spotify announced that it would begin to refrain from promoting artists it deemed performing “hate content” or “demonstrate hateful conduct personally” on its company-curated playlists. This includes artist R. Kelly, who has been accused over the years of sexual misconduct. Pandora and Apple Music have now taken similar steps to deemphasize artists.Pitchfork reported that Apple quietly began to pull R. Kelly from some of its curated playlists prior to Spotif

Alright, try not to giggle too hard: A new BlackBerry is coming.
In a post on Twitter, BlackBerry announced that its next smartphone, the "Key 2," will be unveiled on June 7 at 10 a.m. ET in New York.
SEE ALSO: 11 reasons why you should dump your iPhone for the BlackBerry KEYone
BlackBerry shared the tweet in the most millennial (are they courting hip young kids again?!) way possible: with emoji. 🔑2⃣ 👀 pic.twitter.com/t4ZF9yGfhH
— BlackBerry Mobile (@BBMobile) Ma

A year or so ago, I decided to start using less plastic. I bought an insulated water bottle for my morning coffee, as well as bee’s wax wraps to replace cellophane, and I largely stopped putting my groceries in plastic bags. Instead, I switched to cotton tote bags.I felt really good about myself, until I saw a report published earlier this year by Denmark’s Ministry of Environment and Food that said that plastic bags are better for the environment than organic cotton tote bags. In f

As movies like The Post and TV shows like The Newsroom will tell you, it is the civic duty of every citizen to stay informed.
But with so much happening all at once in our news cycle, it can be tough to keep up with what's going on in current events, let alone make sense of it all.
That's where podcasts come in.
SEE ALSO: Nerd out about books with the new MashReads podcast
In recent years, a number of podcasts have cropped up to help us keep track of what's happening in the world. Some are daily

We all know the fantasy brand story. Two friends in a garage dare to dream and create a product that changes the world forever — a legendary scenario popularized the Steves, Jobs and Wozniak, and looked upon as the perfect representation of the startup spirit. But for makers and entrepreneurs, the real backstories common to the crowdfunding and startup worlds are often never that interesting. They’re normally pretty mundane. Even when there’s a legitimate “two ships pass

Best Buy’s having a one-day sale today, May 12th, on TCL’s 55-inch P-Series Roku TV, which we deemed “the best budget 4K TV you can get” last year, so maybe consider this deal. It usually costs $599.99, but it’s $100 off today, so you’ll get it for $499.99. It’s available both through BestBuy.com and the company’s retail locations.
The TV features local-area dimming, 4K resolution, HDR, and simple software that provides access to streaming apps. I

Riding the bus to work, out to dinner, or back home has become a mobile affair. 
What used to be a daily search for my plastic metro card, or from more than a decade ago my monthly paper pass, has turned into yet another tap on my smartphone screen. Bus access has been digitized. 
In the same way I hail a taxi by pushing a few buttons on my phone, I can now order tickets for a 90-minute bus or light-rail rides. It's all thanks to the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency, which

This post is part of Mashable's Masturbation Week. May is National Masturbation Month, so we're celebrating by exploring the many facets of self-love.
For as long as people have been masturbating, there have been misconceptions surrounding the act. Thankfully, most of the assumptions held about self-pleasure (no, it won't kill you — and no, it's nothing to be ashamed about) have been debunked over the years. 
SEE ALSO: How mutual masturbation can help close the orgasm gap
Here are six

We live in an era where free checked baggage is as antiquated as pay phones and land lines. Carry-on luggage is our reality — and when it comes to picking out your bag, winging it is not an option.
Sure, it's easy to pick any old bag from your closet and hope it's smaller than your airline's baggage restrictions, but it's often too big or too heavy, and you're forced to check it anyways. Ugh.
SEE ALSO: Love to travel? Save big on these innovative duffel bags, backpacks, and suitcases.

Guess what: I’ve found the most stressful game ever. It’s called 旅かえる (Tabi Kaeru or Travel Frog), and I have no idea how to play it. In this game, I’m responsible for the life and happiness of a tiny frog. Based on Buddhist philosophical ideas about control and letting go, the frog comes and goes as it pleases. The player has no control over when it visits or how long it stays. Apparently, everyone loves it — it was downloaded almost fou

This December I wrote a widely-circulated article on the inapplicability of blockchain to any actual problem. People objected mostly not to the technology argument, but rather hoped that decentralization could produce integrity. Let’s start with this: Venmo is a free service to transfer dollars, and bitcoin transfers are not free. Yet after I wrote an article last December saying bitcoin had no use, someone responded that Ve

Humans usually think that as long as no one's watching, they can get away with whatever they want.
But in this day and age, someone is always watching. At the very least, our overlord Google has eyes everywhere. 
And when those little Google Street View cars roll by, you'd better believe they're recording everything.
So behold, parking violators and general dickish behavior abound in this collection of people caught being general assholes on Google Street View. Some didn't think they'd get

Arduino Day isn’t just the birthday of a versatile, open-source platform adored by developers and engineers everywhere. It’s a celebration of creativity and technology, of makers and tinkerers, of STEM students and future visionaries. Most of all, it’s a reminder that we all have the ability to build impressive projects without Tony Stark levels of genius or wealth. 
So on May 12th, why not take the time to get to know Arduino? To get you started, we’ve rounded up fi

In April 2017, Facebook launched the Messenger Bot Store. TechCrunch posited “Facebook’s Messenger Bot Store could be the most important launch since the App Store.” Less than nine months later at CES, Facebook announced M was dead. WIRED declared “Facebook’s virtual assistant M is dead. So are chatbots.” Despite these declarations, bots in some form were all over CES. Forrester Research’s JP Gownder noted “it’s the year of AI and conversati

Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night was one of the biggest video game Kickstarter success stories of all time, and Koji Igarashi’s Castlevania throwback is set for a release later this year. Before then, though, there’s another Bloodstained coming very soon. A spin-off title called Bloodstained: Curse of the Moon was just announced at the BitSummit indie games show in Kyoto, and it’s going to be released in a couple of weeks.
While Ritual of the Night is attempting to evoke Igar

Shortly after a Verge report about deceptive rehab marketing on Google last September, the search giant temporarily banned ads on rehab-related searches in the U.S., which had been netting them an estimated $78 million annually. After a January Sunday Times story exposed similar practices in the U.K., focusing on a referral company called Addiction Helper, Google banned ads on rehab searches there, too.
When the new policy was enacted, The Intercept ran a story criticizing the policy for benefi

Google held its developer's conference earlier this week, wowing and shocking the world with a demo of Google Duplex. The new AI voice assistant can make phone calls on your behalf, and it's shockingly believable.
While some raised the question of ethics, YouTuber Adam Fierman dreamed up another scenario. In the parody published on Friday, the assistant makes a phone call to a man's girlfriend. Then it dumps her.
"John would like you to remove his belongings  from his apartment," the bot sa

It's been a year since the WannaCry ransomware swept the globe, encrypting computers and wreaking havoc in the process. So you might think we'd have the vulnerability it exploited neatly wrapped up by now. 
You'd be wrong. 
Despite the potential billions of dollars in damage caused by the likely North Korean ransomware, hundreds of thousands of computers around the globe are still vulnerable to similar attacks — and that's probably not going to change any time soon. 
SEE ALS

We've officially taken our love for the royal family a little too far. 
An online printing service called Bags of Love sells personalized bathing suits. Buyers can upload pretty much any photo and put it on a suit. So in order to show off their product, the website decided print closeup face shots of Prince Harry and Meghan Markle on a suit, which can be yours for about $38.
I guess if you're trying to make the swimsuits look as good as they possibly can, the royal couple is a good choice.