Technology news

Almost a year after it was first announced, Apple has finally released its updated AirPlay 2 multiroom audio streaming platform. The company has also posted a list of devices that users can expect to work with AirPlay 2, including speakers from Sonos, Bang & Olufsen, and Libratone as well as AV receivers from Marantz and Denon (spotted by MacRumors).None of the third-party speakers actually have AirPlay 2 yet; only Apple's own HomePod does right now. This is just Apple’s list of the i

This Saturday, Russia scholar Sean Guillory ran into a problem on Facebook. He had just finished an episode of his podcast, in which he interviewed the editor of a new compendium of Donald Trump coverage translated from Russian magazines and newspapers. Titled Russians on Trump, the book is drawn largely from Trump’s pre-presidential activities, and intended more for scholars than news junkies. But because Trump’s Russia ties were being so closely scrutinized, Guillory decided to pu

iOS 11.4 is here, and it brings with it a few highly anticipated features for Apple’s HomePod speaker, including the ability to create a stereo pair of two HomePods and support for Apple’s new multi-room AirPlay 2 standard. Here’s how to get everything all set up:Before you get to the fun part, you’ll have to first make sure everything has been updated to iOS 11.4. To update your phone, you’ll need to head over to the Settings app → General → Software Upd

Spoilers ahead for season one of Killing Eve.
Killing Eve, BBC America’s newest drama, is a twist on the usual espionage genre: the James Bond character and the charismatic, elusive nemesis are both women. Our hero, an M15 security officer named Eve (Sandra Oh) finds herself caught in a cat and mouse game with a sadistic assassin who calls herself Villanelle (Jodie Comer), one in which the pair’s growing obsession with each other ventures into homoerotic territory. It’s a reci

The secure messaging app Telegram was banned in Russia back in April, but so far, it’s still available in the Russian version of Apple’s App Store. As another measure toward completely banning Telegram, Russia is now asking Apple to remove the app from the App Store and block it from sending push notifications to local users, as reported by Wccftech. In a supposedly legally binding letter to Apple, authorities say they’re giving the company one month to comply before they enfo

A former software engineer at Snapchat parent company Snap Inc. accused the company of fostering a “sexist” and “toxic” workplace culture, accusations company leadership did not deny, according to a report from Cheddar. Snap now says that it’s working hard to remedy the issues the engineer, Shannon Lubetich, highlighted — starting with improving its diversity figures. For the first time ever, Snap disclosed that just 13 percent of its technical workforce are

Warning: Spoilers for Solo: A Star Wars Story, Rogue One, and The Force Awakens ahead.
Halfway through 2016’s Rogue One: A Star Wars Story, I started getting a sinking feeling. I was enjoying the movie, but its intentions were just starting to sink in. Rogue One doesn’t fully hide its seams. It’s a stitched-together production, but it’s easy to get swept up in the narrative. And then it becomes clear that not all of the heroes — maybe none of the heroes — are

The Nintendo Switch is experiencing a bit of a lull at the moment. Following the console’s inaugural year, which included the huge hits Super Mario Odyssey and The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, fans have had to settle for only a handful of new games. Those have included a few fresh releases, like Mario + Rabbids and Kirby Star Allies, and some welcome enhanced Wii U games and indie ports like Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze and Stardew Valley. But it’s clear Nintendo fan

It only took 32 hours of continuous driving in sweltering temperatures, but two Colorado residents have set a new “hypermiling” record by driving their Tesla Model 3 606.2 miles (975 km) on a single charge. It beat a previous record of 560 miles from a Tesla Model S P100D, but it fell slightly short of a 670-mile run in a Model S by an Italian team last August.
Hypermiling is a technique used to conserve gas (or in this case, electricity) that involves driving at a low, consistent s

If there's anything Twitter users love, it's multiple choice memes.  
Remember "I am a" memes, the Twitter trend where people said what they're really looking for on dating apps? The popular format is back in the form of "I am straight/gay/bi" memes, letting Twitter users poke at tired gender and sexual identity binaries. 
SEE ALSO: 'I am a' memes show what people are really seeking on dating apps
The questionnaire memes taking over Twitter have it all: pop punk lyrics, nods to classic

You do not want to mess with a mama moose, especially if its young are nearby.
A moose and its two calves were spotted along a busy highway near Joint Base Elmendorf–Richardson in Anchorage, Alaska last week. Penned in by the fence and the highway, the mother moose began charging cyclists on an adjacent trail.
A news crew covering the incident managed to capture one of the charges on camera, and even intervened. Fortunately, though the moose bluff charged the cyclist, it did not make conta

Starbucks is out of business for the afternoon.
In response to several Starbucks employees being accused of racial profiling customers, the coffee chain decided to close its 8,000 company-owned stores for several hours on May 29 to administer racial-bias training.
SEE ALSO: How can Starbucks ensure its racial-bias training actually helps a divided America?For several hours this afternoon, we will close stores and offices to discuss how to make Starbucks a place where all people feel welcome.Than

Before PlayStation vs. Xbox, before even Nintendo vs. Sega, there was Atari vs. Intellivision. 
There were other competitors that came and went during the 1980s, too. Atari bested them all, but Intellivision, with three million units sold during the first half of the decade, came the closest to putting up a fight. 
SEE ALSO: The Zen of old video games
Now it's coming back. As the new team driving Atari continues to tease 2018 gamers with vague details of the soon-to-be-revived hardware

  
There’s a sneaky reason why the water in your shower may be making your hair less manageable than Medusa’s.
Tap water plays an important role in your everyday life that goes beyond small talk about H2O quality in your respective state (braggadocious New Yorkers, you know what we’re talking about). You drink it, you wash your beloved coffee mug with it, and — assuming you bathe regularly — you consistently immerse your entire body in it. But there are a

In April, Netflix debuted Mercury 13, a documentary about a trailblazing group of 13 women in the 1960s who could have been the first US female astronauts, if their training program hadn’t been cancelled. The doc is a touching portrait of the women pilots, but it leaves some questions unanswered.
The Mercury 13 program was not officially run by NASA. It was created by NASA physician William Randolph Lovelace, who developed the physical and psychological tests used to select NASA’s f

The latest book from writer David Sedaris, Calypso, hits shelves on Tuesday, adding yet another tome to the writer's stellar collection. The book is his 12th overall, which means that after you're done, there's still a whole body of work to continue to explore. 
And, yet, with so many books, essays, and stories circulating from his 25 year career, it can be daunting for both newcomers and long-time fans alike to figure out where to jump in to Sedaris' stack of writing.
SEE ALSO: 21 books yo

A new trailer for Mega Man 11 dropped Tuesday showing off an extended look at the game's slick, modern visuals and new time-slowing mechanic to help you master tough platforming and difficult boss battles.
In addition to a look at some of the upcoming game's levels and bosses, the trailer also reveals the game's release date: Oct. 2. The new entry in the series will be coming to Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and PC.
Mega Man 11, first revealed in December, comes eight years after Meg

Roseanne, the recently rebooted ABC show starring right-wing comedian Roseanne Barr, has been canceled by the network after Barr made a racist, conspiracist remark about Valerie Jarrett, one of President Obama’s closest advisers. (Jarrett has been a favorite target of conservative conspiracy-mongers since Obama was in office.)@therealroseanne tweet now deleted and apology has been issued. Screenshot here so people can still see it. Hey @ABCNetwork when someone shows you how much of a raci

Roseanne Barr is the subject of countless headlines and tweets on Tuesday after posting racist remarks on Twitter before announcing she would be leaving the platform altogether.
Barr's since-deleted tweet was pointed towards Barack Obama's former advisor Valerie Jarrett, saying if the “Muslim brotherhood & planet of the apes had a baby=vj.”
As noted by many Twitter users, some outlets covered the incident without explicitly calling the behavior "racist." Instead, they chose to in

These days, it's starting to seem like robots are the answer to every single one of our problems. Too lazy to mow your lawn? Get a robotic mower. Your landlord does not allow you to own a pet? Buy a robotic dog. Looking for someone to brush your teeth for you? Oh yeah, there's a robot for that too.
However, as a society, we can all pretty much agree that the best kinds of robots are those that do the cleaning for you. That's right, we're talking about robotic vacuums. Imagine lounging on the cou

Just like that, Roseanne is over. Again. 
SEE ALSO: Roseanne Barr leaves Twitter after racist tirade, Wanda Sykes quits 'Roseanne'
The cancellation comes after Roseanne Barr's racist tweet about Obama advisor Valerie Jarrett. Barr eventually apologized and said she was leaving Twitter.
But her apology wasn't enough to shield her from the consequences. Producer Wanda Sykes immediately announced she was leaving the show. (Co-showrunner Whitney Cummings had announced her exit days before, for

Russian search giant Yandex has launched a smart speaker to compete with the likes of Amazon, Apple, and Google, the company announced today. The speaker, called the Yandex Station, is the company’s first attempt at hardware, and it’s equipped with a Russian-speaking voice assistant called Alice that was developed in-house.Alice has over 4,000 skills such as hearing workout tips, finding flights, ordering pizza, and helping you cast video to TV. The smart assistant first appeared in

All of LG’s 2018 AI-enabled TVs (OLEDs and LCD-based Super UHDs) will now support voice commands routed through your existing Alexa gadgets including the Amazon Echo, Echo Dot, Echo Show, Echo Spot, and Echo Plus devices. This includes all the critical TV controls, like volume, play / pause, start, stop, fast-forward, searching for content, and changing channels.LG is calling the new Alexa skill “LG SmartThinQ Skill,” which is quite a mouthful, but so are the names of all its

New revelations about Alan Rickman's commitment to doing right by the anti-hero of our childhoods will have Snape fans everywhere saying a solemn, "Always."
Two years after the actor's death, The Independent reports that a collection of Rickman's personal letters are now up for auction at the ABA Rare Book Fair in London. They not only reveal that he had "frustrations" with the limitations of his character's story line in the movies, but also how much author J.K. Rowling appreciated his portraya

At more than 2,000 degrees Fahrenheit, the lava oozing out of Hawaii's Kilauea volcano will easily toast a marshmallow, but that doesn't mean you should go out and start making volcanic s'mores.
On Monday, U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) explained on Twitter that roasting marshmallows over scorching, molten rock is not a great idea for a multitude of reasons.
SEE ALSO: Hawaii's Kilauea volcano could keep erupting for months. Here's why.
"Is it safe to roast marshmallows over volcanic vents?," Twit

Apple, we know you're into the whole "minimal ports" thing (as evidenced by the headphone dongle, thanks for that), but that minimalism doesn't just make iPhones more complicated — it's screwing up MacBooks, too.
SEE ALSO: The best iPad Pro cases on Amazon, according to customer reviews
We still need some ports to plug necessary accessories into our laptops, but in order to do that, we have to connect a dozen dongles (and tons of other crap). Because having only two charging ports is

It’s been a long time coming, but Apple is finally launching its Messages in iCloud feature today with the release of iOS 11.4. Messages on iCloud was announced almost a year ago when Apple first showed off iOS 11 at WWDC 2017, and now — on the eve of the announcement of iOS 12 next week — it’s available to all users.Messages on iCloud is kind of complicated, but here’s what it does:Stores all your messages – whether iMessage or SMS — from all your devi

We usually have some witty punch line to go with deals posts, but when there's a Dell TV that's $1,400 off its original price, you don't really have to say anything more than that.
SEE ALSO: The lighting is always flattering with these smart home light bulbs
Oh yeah, we're seriousA 65-inch smart TV from Dell is regularly $3,299, and it's less than 2K right now. And that's not the only good deal this week.
Us right now:
via GIPHYYou could wait until Black Friday, or you could just take advantage

Get your iPhones and iPads out because iOS 11.4 is now available for download.
For iOS users, the software update finally adds the long-awaited Messages in iCloud feature, which syncs your iMessages across all of your Apple devices. iOS 11.4 also brings stereo pairing support for HomePod and AirPlay 2 for compatible devices.
SEE ALSO: Apple's upcoming iPhone X Plus to be the same size as iPhone 8 Plus, report says
Messages in iCloud is the big one for iOS users. With the feature, all your iMessa

By the end of 2022, China hopes to have its biggest space station yet orbiting around Earth, and the country’s space agency wants other nations to use it. China is inviting all members of the United Nations to submit applications to fly experiments on board the future habitat, dubbed the China Space Station. It’s a major step toward international cooperation for China and its space program, which has mostly relied on domestic hardware and capabilities in the past.
“The China S

UPDATE: May 29, 2018, 1:56 p.m. EDT Shortly after publishing this post, ABC announced that Roseanne has been canceled.
Roseanne Barr went on an exceedingly racist tirade this morning, even for her.
On Tuesday morning, Barr said this of President Obama's former black female advisor Valerie Jarrett: "Muslim brotherhood & planet of the apes had a baby=vj." Barr's tweet caused understandable outrage on social media, eventually prompting the actress to quit Twitter. Wanda Sykes also resigned from

HMD Global, the Finnish company that licensed the rights to produce Nokia phones, originally launched a trio of Android-powered Nokia handsets last year. Sales seem to be going in the right direction, and now HMD is updating its Nokia-branded mid-range and budget smartphones today, with a trio of handsets that are designed to bring some of the more premium phone aspects down to more affordable price points.Nokia 5.1The Nokia 5 from last year was one of the more impressive out of the mid-range o

PSA: Don’t use a popular brand name for your online accounts.
Facebook’s social media team accidentally directed users to the Messenger account of a random Facebook user this morning, instead of the new HBO Westworld Messenger account it was trying to promote. On Twitter, the Messenger account instructed followers to chat with “Tes, the host of the new @WestworldHBO experience on Messenger” and linked to the Messenger account, messenger.com/t/westworld.
One small pro

If you’re still interested in buying a Nintendo 2DS XL, then get ready to give GameStop $159 for the special “Hylian Shield Edition” model, which is launching on July 2nd. It comes preloaded with The Legend of Zelda: A Link Between Worlds, so you can power it on and start saving Hyrule immediately.
Hopefully you haven’t forgotten the Super NES game The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past, which is the predecessor to the bundled game The Legend of Zelda: A Link Between Wo

It looks like the investment service Acorns may turn into an oak faster than expected.
Billed as an automated investment manager for the people, Acornsis off to a blistering start with its new retirement account service picking up 100,000 accounts in its first month.
Unlike other investment services, Acorns takes spare change from transactions and rewards agreements with certain retailers to invest in a managed portfolio. The company’s initial “spare change” investment service

In all likelihood, no one from Earth today will set foot on a world orbiting another star, but thanks to NASA, we may have the next-best thing.
NASA's Exoplanet Exploration tool lets anyone with an internet connection experience what it might be like to stand on the surface of a planet light-years from Earth and look up into the sky. 
SEE ALSO: Here's how NASA's TESS will hunt for alien planets
The website is designed to transport you to some popular exoplanet destinations — like Kepl

The first details on iOS 12 are right around the corner, but that doesn't mean Apple's done pushing out new features for iOS 11.
As part of iOS 11.4, rolling out on Tuesday, Apple's finally letting users pair two HomePods in stereo mode and stream music to multiple rooms using the long-delayed AirPlay 2.
SEE ALSO: Apple to use OLED for all iPhones in 2019, report claims
When Apple announced HomePod at WWDC 2017, it demoed both stereo pairing and AirPlay 2 music streaming. It's almost a year late