Technology news

One of the more frustrating aspects of Windows 10 is the operating system’s ability to start installing updates when you’re in the middle of using it. While Microsoft has tried to address this aggressive approach to updates with features to snooze installation, Windows 10 users continue to complain that updates reboot devices when they’re in use.
Reacting to this feedback, Microsoft says it’s aware of the issues. “We heard you, and to alleviate this pain, if you ha

Venture capitalist Peter Thiel has returned to teach a class at Stanford University, according to a listing spotted by Stanford graduate Andrew Granato on Twitter. Thiel is currently listed as a co-instructor for “German 270: Sovereignty and the Limits of Globalization and Technology.” Thiel attended Stanford for both undergraduate and law school, and he previously taught a law course at the undergrad level in 2011. That law course covered similar topics, titled “Sovereignty,

"I’m fucking miserable. I had to get up at 10 o’clock this morning." 
If that quote rings some bells, you've either been going through my texts or have seen the ridiculous comedy Step Brothers.
On July 25, 2008, Step Brothers hit theaters—and thus began its love-it-or-hate-it relationship with audiences. Just as one critic would applaud the comedy for its "irredeemably funny" moments, another would dismiss it as crude, stupid, or pointless. 
SEE ALSO: Kids asking ques

Lego announced its new (and enormous) 6,020-piece Hogwarts Castle set Wednesday that is sure to delight and overwhelm Harry Potter heads everywhere. 
The back of the massive buildable Hogwarts Castle — just over 22-inches tall and 27-inches wide, according to a press release from Lego — gives builders access to the potions classroom, Chamber of Secrets, and the Great Hall, among other nooks and crannies of the castle. 
SEE ALSO: Lego's model of Jason Momoa as Aquaman is zad

Qualcomm has finally given up on buying NXP Semiconductors, a Dutch company known for automotive and IoT chips, which it’s been trying to acquire for nearly two years. The deal has long been held up by the Chinese government, and now, Qualcomm has said it will scrap the agreement altogether rather than continue the uncertain fight toward a completed acquisition. In doing so, it’ll have to pay a breakup fee of $2 billion.
The two companies initially entered into a deal in October 201

Microsoft is starting to test its next major Windows 10 update. Codenamed 19H1, the update will be made available in the first half of 2019. Microsoft has started releasing public builds of 19H1 to Windows 10 testers today, with features that will also be included in the codename Redstone 5 update due in September or October. Microsoft is adding a new Mixed Reality Flashlight feature that opens a low-latency pass-through camera feed from a controller to allow users to see the real world around

Google is having a busy week at its Cloud Next '18 conference, but it's primarily been all software announcements. That changed on Wednesday with the Titan Security Key.
SEE ALSO: WiFi security is finally getting an update after 14 years
The Titan is a physical security key that adds a layer of authentication to an account — one that a digital authenticator can't match. It will first launch for Google Cloud customers before rolling out to all consumers via the Google Store in the months th

The red planet is popular with science fiction enthusiasts and space scientists alike, and now, thanks to a fortunate cosmic alignment, everyone can get in on the Martian action. 
SEE ALSO: Mars' ice age may have turned the red planet white 370,000 years ago
On Friday, Mars will be directly across from the sun from Earth's perspective. Just days later, on July 31, the planet will make its closest approach to Earth — just about 35.8 million miles from our planet.  That's the

April the giraffe is pregnant again, everyone, we are already tired. 
The 17-year-old giraffe reached international popularity last year for the infamous livestream of her extremely long pregnancy. She eventually gave birth to Tajiri, a male calf who recently celebrated his first birthday. 
SEE ALSO: This giraffe birth livestream is driving the internet insane
Jordan Patch, Animal Adventure Park owner, announced the big news on the TODAY show on Wednesday. 
"The results are in and

David Milch’s Deadwood, HBO’s best Western, ended 12 years ago after an impressive three-season run: while it was airing, it won eight Emmys and oodles of critical acclaim, and found a devoted audience to boot. (The show charts the development of a fictional frontier outpost in the 1870s in the very real Deadwood, South Dakota.) Since its 2006 end, those fans have been clamoring for a satisfying resolution to the series, in the form of a fourth season or as a movie. At this summer&r

For years, Facebook has enjoyed astronomical growth, but that’s starting to slow as the company’s moderation controversies and data privacy scandals continue to pile up. Facebook posted earnings for the second quarter of 2018 today, with revenue and user growth coming in under Wall Street estimates. It’s the first time the company’s quarterly sales did not exceed expectations in roughly three years.Facebook’s numbers were still wildly impressive for the quarter: it

Back in mid-May, Square quietly launched a landing page for a feature that helps small business owners create contracts that protect them from buyer chargebacks and other credit card disputes. It hasn’t publicly announced them yet, but in an interview, Square told The Verge why it launched these contracts, which will be promoted to business owners starting in August.
Kay Feker, Square’s risk program manager, noticed earlier this year that customers were increasingly asking for money

Surprise! That very innocent soccer ball Russian President Vladimir Putin gifted Donald Trump during their Helsinki summit last week (yes, that was just last week, folks) may not be so innocent. 
Bloomberg is reporting that the soccer ball may contain an embedded NFC (Near Field Communication) chip. 
The ball, which is produced by Adidas, is typically embedded with a chip that allows it to communicate with nearby devices, such as phones and tablets. Once connected with a device, the ch

Y Combinatorbacked Zbiotics has spend two years developing what they’re billing as the world’s first genetically engineered probiotic. The startup’s initial product isn’t exactly world-changing but it might just save your day — given they’ve invented an elixir of ‘next day’ life: Aka a hangover cure.
Although you actually have to take it before — or, well, during — drinking rather than waiting until the moment of reg

Chris Hardwick will once again host AMC’s The Walking Dead after show The Talking Dead and his other talk show Talking with Chris Hardwick after he was suspended from the project following allegations of sexual misconduct from his ex-girlfriend Chloe Dykstra. He will resume hosting duties on August 12th.In a statement, AMC said that it conducted a “comprehensive assessment,” and that it believes “returning Chris to work is the appropriate step.”
In June, Dykstra pu

Hot on the heels of the last MacBook Pro controversy about overheating concerns — which followed the previous uproar about keyboard issues, which, in turn, followed the original outrage about USB-C ports when the current design was first introduced — is yet another potential issue with Apple’s latest laptops. This time, it’s centered around the T2 chip that enables things like secure boot, better encrypted storage, and “Hey Siri” support.According to a report

Long before it was a television show and prior to the book series by James S.A. Corey, The Expanse was originally a game. Now, the futuristic sci-fi world is headed back to its roots, thanks to Green Ronin Publishing, which launched a new role-playing game adaptation of The Expanse through Kickstarter earlier this week.In 2001, series creator and co-author Ty Franck began to develop the world that would become The Expanse. Inspired by books like Alfred Bester’s novel The Stars My Destinat

If you ask your Amazon Echo for information about the closest drugstore, you can now not only get the hours, but other information about those that are closest to you, thanks to the recent update that’s adding that information to the more than 1 million businesses in Amazon’s Alexa platform.
This latest update comes courtesy of Amazon’s new partnership with Yext, a company that’s supplying the tech giant with business data aggregated from Google and Facebook, as well as

Some newer Huawei phones are actively being blocked from installing the open-source VLC media player app from Google Play. VLC’s developers announced today that they’re blacklisting some of Huawei’s devices after unhappy users left too many one-star reviews for the app. But the negative reviews stem from a decision on Huawei’s part and has nothing to do with VLC.
The negative reviews are a result of Huawei’s aggressive battery management and tendency to kill backgr

During an oversight hearing of the Federal Communications Commission on Wednesday afternoon, FCC chairman Ajit Pai responded to a tweet from the president saying the commission’s call for a hearing over Sinclair Broadcast Group’s proposed acquisition of Tribune Media was “disgraceful.” Pai said he “stands by” his decision but did not address the president’s tweet directly.
Rep. Frank Pallone (D-NJ) was the first member to interrogate the commissioners o

Amazon first introduced Echo Spatial Perception (ESP) to its first-party Echo devices nearly two years ago. ESP makes sure that only the Echo device closest to you in your home will respond, and it’s ideal if you have multiple Echo devices. While Amazon has been trying to expand this feature to third-party devices, most Alexa-enabled devices don’t support ESP. Amazon is changing that today, and moving ESP to the cloud.
The change means that every Alexa-enabled device can now support

YouTube is expanding its virtual reality app to support Samsung’s Gear VR devices, and it’s also adding a new feature that lets users watch a video together and chat. If you own a Gear VR device, you’ll be able to download the app from the Oculus Store beginning this week, Google announced today in a blog post.YouTube has been conspicuously absent from the Oculus Store, and it’s been a significant selling point for Google’s Daydream VR platform, although it’s

Google is rolling out the final preview version of Android P today ahead of its public release sometime next month. Android VP Dave Burke notes that this beta 4 (developer preview 5) build includes “final system behaviors.”So Google’s new gesture-based navigation for Android P should be locked in and finalized as of this release. There’s always the potential for more improvements and changes in future updates, of course, but whatever’s here is what will ship in And

Google Drive, the company’s flagship file storage service, is in its sixth year running, and now, according to the company, Drive is about to be used by 1 billion people worldwide.The announcement came from the Google Cloud Next conference in San Fransisco, according to TechCrunch, though Google wouldn’t get into the details about exactly when its billionth user will officially log on, only saying that it’ll happen “later this week.”This will officially be Google&r

On July 16th, graphic novelist, screenwriter, producer, and animator Noelle Stevenson revealed four images online, and set off a tiny internet war. Those images were the first stills from She-Ra and the Princesses of Power, Stevenson’s upcoming Netflix reboot of the 1980s Filmation / Mattel collaboration She-Ra: Princess of Power, a companion show to He-Man and the Masters of the Universe. They’re simple pictures — a few characters and a background — but they made some p

For years, scientists have been exploring how we can use signals from the brain to control prosthetic limbs. Usually, this work is focused on restoring motor function to people who have lost an arm or a leg, but new research from Japan shows how the same technology can also be used to augment existing human capabilities.Engineers from Kyoto’s Advanced Telecommunications Research Institute have demonstrated how people can be taught to control a third robotic arm with their brains, even usi

Back at E3, Nintendo announced that it would be bringing back the classic GameCube controller for the release of Super Smash Bros. Ultimate this December. But Nintendo won’t be the only company with a new retro controller this year, with Hori announcing its own, officially licensed GameCube-style controllers for the Switch, too.Unlike Nintendo’s upcoming reissue, which are original GameCube controllers through and through, down to the proprietary connector on the end (you’ll n

It’s time to say goodbye to Kuri — a home robot that was essentially an Echo on wheels. Mayfield Robotics, which designed the bot, announced today that it’s pausing production and will refund customers who placed preorders. The company seems to be putting most of the blame on Bosch, which supported the company through its Startup Platform program. Mayfield says the company couldn’t find a “business fit” within Bosch to “support and scale” the busi

If you’re spending a ton of money — too much, in the eyes of some — for the best Chromebook in the world, why not burn nearly $100 more for a protective case to go with it? We’re at the point where Pixelbook 2 rumors are starting to pop up, but that hasn’t stopped Tech21 from making a $90 case for the first-generation model. The company says its Evo Adapt offers “a dual-layer design and bulletproof materials” that “ensure your Pixelbook is well co

Conspiracy theorist Alex Jones’ YouTube channel received a strike on Tuesday for violating the site’s community guidelines, The Verge has learned. YouTube removed four videos from Jones’ channel, which has 2.4 million subscribers, that contained instances of hate speech and child endangerment, sources familiar with the matter said. YouTube channels are deleted if they get three strikes in a three-month period.
Two videos contained hate speech against Muslims, and a third conta

Today at the Next conference, Google announced a new product called the Titan Security Key, currently available to Cloud customers and scheduled for general sale in the coming months. The key is used to authenticate logins over Bluetooth and USB, similar to existing offerings from Yubico and other providers. A Google representative said the Titan key also includes special firmware developed by Google to verify its authenticity.
“Titan Security Key gives you even more peace of mind that yo

There are so many Star Trek jokes you could make about these officially licensed wireless earbuds that are modeled after Vulcan ears. But with that color scheme, honestly they look more like hearing aids to me than the ears of Captain Spock.Image credit: ThinkGeek
ThinkGeek is selling the Star Trek wireless Vulcan earbuds for $39, and they include a talk time of four to five hours, an in-line microphone and remote, and they charge in two hours. Also included in the box is a Micro USB charging c

Google is launching a new form of secure login for business customers it’s calling context-aware access. Instead of relying solely on users to appropriately set up two-factor authentication and manage secure passwords, context-aware access will let system administrators for G Suite businesses put a set of parameters in place that can prevent malicious third parties from accessing secure systems.These parameters, as the name implies, can now be based on a user’s context: where they&r

The Editor’s Choice-winning LG G7 ThinQ is $120 off right now at B&H Photo. This brings its fairly expensive price of $749 down to $629. At first blush, LG’s latest flagship looks like another iPhone X copycat, but there’s far more to the G7 ThinQ than its notch. It’s comfortable to hold one-handed. Its excellent haptic feedback easily bests any other non-LG Android phone. The loudspeaker is powerful and clear. There’s a headphone jack, and you also get wireles

This week, a study in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B found that university students who had been infected with Toxoplasma gondii — a mind-controlling parasite found in cat feces — were more likely to be business majors. “Toxoplasma, found in cat feces, makes mice unafraid of cats, and it could give people the courage to start their own businesses,” said NBC News. (Later, the article said the researchers “haven’t actually shown that” in r

Grubhub, an online food delivery service, announced today that it will acquire LevelUp for $390 million — in cash.
The announcement came in the company’s second quarter earnings release, which was first reported by TechCrunch. In the report, Grubhub’s CEO Matt Maloney says that this acquisition will serve an entirely different purpose than the ones the company has made before, focusing more on connecting customers and restaurants instead of expanding its current delivery reach

Just one day after Facebook gained permission to open a subsidiary in China, the government pulled the business filing and began to censor mentions of the news. An anonymous source tells The New York Times that Facebook no longer has permission to launch the startup incubator it had planned.
Facebook planned to open up a $30 million subsidiary called Facebook Technology (Hangzhou) and run a startup incubator that would have made small investments and gave advice to local businesses.
Local offic

Facebook has officially launched a new feature called Watch Party that will let users simultaneously watch Facebook videos together. Their streams will be synced so they can comment and react while the host adds videos to the watch queue and controls playback. Multiple people can “host” the Watch Party, which gives them the ability to choose videos to add. Attendees can suggest videos but not actually play them. For now, Watch Parties can only be started within Groups — not Pa

The founder and owner of CustomMousePad.com, Jennie Stewart, came forward yesterday with what she believed was a promise from a Republican congressman to save net neutrality. Last month, Stewart alleges that she was assured by Rep. Don Young (R-AK) that he would sign the Democrat-led discharge petition to force a vote in the House, which would reverse the Federal Communications Commission’s December vote to revoke the rules.
Fight for the Future, a prominent net neutrality advocacy group,

There’s a lot going on with the Memomate, a device that combines a 6.5-inch E Ink display for note-taking with a 10,000mAh battery pack for recharging your devices while you’re on the go, and there’s an optional wireless charger thrown in for good measure.An odd combination, to be sure
It’s not that any of the things it does are necessarily bad. People like taking notes on the go, and they need to keep their devices charged. But the idea of combining them into one packag

Netflix has announced a “makeover” of its selection of user profile icons. The company is refreshing the current icons and adding dozens of new options including characters from its own original shows like Stranger Things, Orange is the New Black, Queer Eye, and more. “We’re thrilled to give you a way to show your fandom and make your connection with Netflix more unique,” the company wrote in a blog post. In total, users will now be able to choose from over 100 dif

Mars hosts a huge underground aquifer of liquid water, according to a group of scientists who say they have found convincing evidence. The underground lake hasn’t been seen directly, but if it’s real, it’s a discovery that substantially increases the likelihood that the Red Planet might host life.
Researchers detected the possible reservoir with the Mars Express Orbiter, a European spacecraft that’s been orbiting Mars since 2003. While scanning the ice cap at Mars’