Technology news

Best Buy has launched a $200 per year subscription version of its Geek Squad service called Total Tech Support, which — despite the name — is anything but total, and is probably also a questionable value for tech support.
The service offers subscribers 24/7 tech support over the phone or online, for most tech products in the home (even if they weren’t purchased from Best Buy). Subscribers will also be able to go into Best Buy stores to receive help with basic tech support asks

Information has been trickling out bit by bit for the RED Hydrogen One, the digital camera company's first smartphone. Besides the marquee "holographic" display that can show both 2D and 3D content with no special glasses, the Hydrogen One has a partially modular design, allowing it to connect with connect with other devices via proprietary connectors.
Now we know what the first of those devices will be: an 8K 3D camera from RED and Lucid, a 360 camera company best known for the VR180 LucidCam,

Wireless chargers are cheaper than ever, making it easy to put charging pads throughout your house. But what if instead of just putting charging pads everywhere, you built them straight into the wall?
That’s what Legrand envisions with the Radiant charger, which is designed to replace your regular wall outlet with a wall-mounted Qi charger (via 9to5Mac.) It’s an interesting idea with a slick look to it, but it also seems like it’d limited in actual practice.First off, it assum

Donald Trump is president, and a sinkhole has formed on the White House lawn.
Listen, I'm not saying the two are related, but this is the second sinkhole to have formed in the vicinity of the Trump family in the last two years.
In fact, a sinkhole appeared outside Trump's Mar-a-Lago estate EXACTLY ONE YEAR AGO TODAY. 
If that's not a direct sign from ... somewhere ... people, I don't know what is.
SEE ALSO: The Royal Wedding was another perfect opportunity to troll Trump's inauguration
On T

Allergies are more annoying than usual this year, right?
No really, it's not your imagination — pollen season is getting worse every year, and air purifiers are making their way to the must-have list of home appliances.
A recent segment on ABC News detailed that climate change is a huge factor that's contributing to the worsening pollen seasons. Among the culprits are high temperatures and raised levels of carbon dioxide, both of which can affect the proteins in the pollen grains that

Humans can be great acrobats, but what about Disney robots? Disney Research has one such human-scale robot — called Stickman, because it’s literally a robotic stick — that is capable of aerial acrobatics, like backflips.Just as certain human inventions take after nature (like body armor), it seems as if robots can take after humans. During a full backflip maneuver, Stickman swings from a ceiling-mounted wire 19.6 feet (six meters) above ground, tucks into a ball at peak height

Mark Zuckerberg is back on his bullshit. 
The Facebook CEO appeared before Members of the European Parliament (MEPs) on Tuesday to discuss data protection in the wake of the Cambridge Analytica scandal. The questions of European lawmakers were, in terms of specificity and sophistication, lightyears ahead of most of their American counterparts. 
But because of an odd format — in which MEPs asked Zuckerberg all of the questions at the beginning, then let him answer everything

Mark Zuckerberg’s appearance before European Parliament today was designed to give members a chance to ask Facebook’s CEO about pressing matters involving data privacy, terrorist content, disinformation, and monopoly power, among other issues. Over the course of an hour, Zuckerberg did face sharp inquiries about each of those subjects. But the format of the hearing allowed him only a few minutes to answer dozens of intricate questions. By the time the hearing was over, he had only o

Bowls have a lot going for them — they're nice to look at, they rarely shatter, and they're uniquely adept at holding chocolate pudding. 
It is the nature of the foodie community, however, to destroy good things and replace them with something inferior. Take the latest food trend, "bowl food." What is bowl food? It is food thrown into a bowl, perhaps with the addition of some sauce to make it a meal. 
Despite the simplicity of that, the food elite — which includes the Briti

The General Data Protection Regulation will go into effect on May 25th, and no one is ready — not the companies and not even the regulators.After four years of deliberation, the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) was officially adopted by the European Union in 2016. The regulation gave companies a two-year runway to get compliant, which is theoretically plenty of time to get shipshape. The reality is messier. Like term papers and tax returns, there are people who get it done early,

Last year Netflix made its first attempt at producing a blockbuster action movie with the fantasy-action hybrid Bright, but it appears the service has upped its ambitions considerably. According to The Hollywood Reporter, it will be producing a new Ryan Reynolds action film called Six Underground, which will be directed by Transformers’ Michael Bay.
Bay has become synonymous with bombastic, expensive action flicks, with a filmography made up of movies like Bad Boys, The Rock, and The Tran

Nigel Farage echoed American right-wing talking points today in the European Parliament’s meeting with Mark Zuckerberg, claiming that Facebook was censoring conservative voices, citing a heavy drop in engagement on his own page, President Trump’s page, and the pages of “other conservative commentators.” Farage, a British politician who was instrumental in the Brexit vote to leave the EU, currently represents the UK in the European Parliament, which is a legislative body

When will sculptors learn how to sculpt? 
On Monday, soccer player Brandi Chastain was inducted into the Bay Area Sports Hall of Fame. This is well deserved as Chastain is a two-time Olympic gold medalist and a two-time World Cup champion.
SEE ALSO: New Zealand female soccer players will be paid the same as men
Unfortunately, though she is joining a group of notable and honored athletes, the plaque made in her honor is joining a league with a different sort of fame.Brandi Chastain has won a

Tesla CEO Elon Musk said that the Model 3 would be getting an update after Consumer Reports said it found some “big flaws” in the electric car’s braking and “difficult-to-use” touchscreen. In response, the publication released a statement praising Tesla for taking its criticisms seriously.In its review published on Monday, CR said there was “plenty to like” about the Model 3, but that it ultimately couldn’t recommend the vehicle due to a shockingl

Interest in the phenomenon of “deepfakes” has died down a little in recent months, presumably as the public comes to terms with what seems like an inevitability in 2018 — that people can and will use AI to create super-realistic fake videos and images. But a recent news story by BuzzFeed surfaced the term again in an unexpected setting, inviting the question: what is a deepfake anyway?
The article in question was titled “A Belgian Political Party Is Circulating A Trump D

Could the Pixel 3 be the first edge-to-edge phone with no notch? The latest beta of Android P has us thinking this thanks to a phone rendering found in Settings first spotted by SlashLeaks.
Interestingly, the front of the phone depicted appears to be all screen with no bezels or notch — a design that manufacturers have so far not been able to achieve. The core reason for this is the placement of the sensors, earpiece, and front-facing camera, which are difficult if not impossible to put be

The Comcast website that activates Xfinity routers has a bug that exposes customers’ personal information. As reported by ZDNet, the page for setting up home Wi-Fi and cable services can display the home address of where the router is located and give away the Wi-Fi password. Comcast learned about the bug and fixed its site shortly after the report, and it said it’s conducting an investigation.
The bug was first spotted by two security researchers who told ZDNet their findings. The

Christopher Nolan has seen the future, and it looks a lot like the past. Nolan is one of a handful of directors who’s made no secret of his commitment to shooting movies on film for as long as possible, even as digital filmmaking becomes the default and maybe an inevitability. In the 2012 documentary Side By Side, an enlightening examination of the digital-versus-film divide produced and hosted by Keanu Reeves, even Nolan’s longtime cinematographer Wally Pfister seemed to think the

Mark Zuckerberg really doesn't want to talk about shadow profiles. 
On Tuesday, May 22, the Facebook CEO did his best to avoid directly answering questions from the European Parliament covering data privacy, Cambridge Analytica, and whether or not his company is a monopoly. One topic, in particular, elicited a rather artless dodge: that of the so-called shadow profile. 
SEE ALSO: Mark Zuckerberg says he's 'not familiar' with so-called shadow profiles
"Um, is there anything else here th

We're two movies deep into the Star Wars spin-offs and it appears that the folks in charge of branding over there are firmly set on the subtitle A Star Wars Story.
This is not good.
A Star Wars Story is a bad subtitle. It's long. It's janky. You can't even really call it a subtitle. If anything, "A Star Wars Story" is a statement about a movie, as if somebody is in the middle of a sentence explaining to their unaware friend what Rogue One and Solo are.
SEE ALSO: Who's who in 'Solo: A Star Wars S

Google’s new YouTube Music streaming service arrives today for some users, available either for free with ads, $9.99 per month without, or $11.99 per month for YouTube Premium (previously YouTube Red), which includes original video content. Anyone who already has a Google Play Music subscription gets YouTube Music as part of that membership.
YouTube Music is Google’s most straightforward answer to Spotify to date, and comes with both a redesigned app and new desktop player, both des

Baidu,the Chinese search giant, is spinning out its business unit responsible for utility apps and its mobile ad business to sharpen its focus on artificial intelligence.
As part of the spin-out, Baidu is selling a large chunk of its equity in the ‘Global DU’ business to as-yet-undisclosed investors. The plan is to sell “a majority equity stake” in order to take Global DU independent. Once the deal is completed — it is targeted at a Q3 2018 timeframe — Ba

Trust in self-driving cars is slipping after several high-profile crashes, two of them fatal, thrust driverless cars into a negative spotlight, a new poll finds. Nearly three-quarters (73 percent) of American drivers report they would be too afraid to ride in a fully self-driving vehicle. That number is up significantly from 63 percent in late 2017, according to a survey conducted by AAA. Additionally, almost two-thirds (63 percent) of US adults report they would feel less safe sharing the road

In the European Parliament’s public meeting with Mark Zuckerberg today, Guy Verhofstadt, a Belgian MEP, hammered Mark Zuckerberg with a brutal question about his legacy, comparing him unfavorably to Steve Jobs and Bill Gates.“You have to ask yourself how you will be remembered,” said Verhofstadt, who is also the chair of the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe. “As one of the three big internet giants together with Steve Jobs and Bill Gates, who have enriched o

Google Maps is rolling out a small, but cute update that lets users change the boring old blue arrow navigation icon on the map to one of three blocky, pixelated cars that can represent your vehicle instead, as spotted by SlashGear.It’s not exactly a new feature in the world of GPS — Waze (which Google owns) has offered it for a while. And personally, I’m not sure the cars are actually more useful than the simple, directional arrow (which makes it much clearer which direction

A week ago, Twitter announced it would become more aggressive in pursuing trolls on its service, a move which seems to have had some unforeseen consequences, judging by the present upheaval in the Bulgarian Twitter community. An increasingly large and unhappy number of people have had their Twitter accounts suspended and messages filtered out of conversations, apparently for the offense of merely tweeting in Cyrillic.
Though the trigger for an account to be suspended hasn’t been specifica

Today Twitter announced it is killing off several of its apps, including Twitter for Android TV, Twitter for Roku, and Twitter for Xbox.
Twitter for Xbox allowed for curated Twitter commentary to display while watching videos, and had a whopping average rating of one and a half stars out of five on the Microsoft store. The dismal feedback is due to the fact that these Twitter apps don’t actually allow you to tweet from your account or fully interact with the Twittersphere in general. A lo

The US and China are working toward a deal that would save ZTE, the Chinese phone maker that’s been on life support since being hit with an American trade ban last month. According to The Wall Street Journal, both countries have agreed to an outline of what a deal might look like that would save the company. Discussions are still ongoing, however, and it’s still not a sure thing that the issue will be resolved.
Under the current outline, the US would lift its trade ban on ZTE, enabl

When Black Panther first hit movie theater screens in February, all eyes were on the legendary cast that included Chadwick Boseman, Michael B. Jordan, and Lupita Nyong'o. But somehow, Trevor Noah managed to sneak into Wakanda too. 
The host of the Daily Show had a cameo in the Marvel film that you might have missed completely, no matter how many times you've seen the film. 
SEE ALSO: Trevor Noah 'officially fires' Michelle Wolf from 'The Daily Show' after her White House Correspondents

We'll soon know much more about Apple's future plans for Siri, iOS and a lot more.
The company sent out invitations for the opening act of its World Wide Developers Conference, which will kick off June 4, in San Jose, California. 
The invitation doesn't reveal much more, though it invites attendees to a Tuesday morning keynote that will start at 10 a.m. Pacific Time. 
SEE ALSO: The Amazing Prototype Designs Behind Apple's Modern Products
The annual event is where Apple typically introd

Quick, how much actual work are you able to get done just in Slack? 
Chances are, unless your job description includes "sending an endless stream of GIFs and emoji to coworkers," the answer is not that much. But that may soon change.
Today, at the company's first ever developer conference, Slack is introducing a new feature called "actions," which lets developers hook their apps even deeper into the chat service so you can do more without ever leaving the app.
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