• South Carolina’s Citibot is building a chatbot for local governments

    GUEST: Entrepreneur Bratton Riley is political royalty in his hometown of Charleston — he is the son of Joseph P. Riley Jr., who served as mayor of the city for 40 years, making Joseph one of the longest-serving mayors in the country. “When I was kid, I literally grew up in City Hall. Now, as an adult and engaged citizen, I really appreciate…Read More
  • Netflix says that season 3 of Stranger Things ‘will be worth the wait’

    Last December, Stranger Things star David Harbour said in an interview that the show likely wouldn’t return for its third season until sometime in 2019, and a recent faux commercial for a new mall in Hawkins hinted at a summer 2019 release. During a presentation at this year’s Television Critics Association press tour, Netflix executives confirmed a delay, but that it’ll be “worth the wait.”
    During today’s TCA presentation, Netflix’s Vice President of O
  • When a big company enters your startup’s space, it’s a good thing

    GUEST: “Hey little startup, aren’t you quaking in your boots at this recent big-company announcement?” As the CEO of a robot startup (and, in the past, a smart home/energy startup), I’ve heard words to that effect whenever news breaks about this or that large company making plays in our segment. After all, the whole point of a startup is to success…Read More
  • Tesla briefly offered a $1500 surfboard

    Elon Musk has come up withs some interesting merchandise to promote his companies over the years: he recently sold Boring Company hats and then a branded flame thrower. Yesterday, his electric car company Tesla released a new product: a $1500 surfboard.Tesla already sells quite a bit of merchandise: hats, shirts, and even a kid-sized ridable car, and briefly, the surfboard. Electrek spotted this new offering when it went online last night, which was designed by Tesla’s design studio in &l
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  • Award-winning artist Julie Dillon is Kickstarting a book of gorgeous sci-fi and fantasy art

    Julie Dillon is a rising star in the science fiction and fantasy community. Her gorgeous artwork has appeared in everything from the covers of novels from publishers such as Tor Books, Angry Robot, and Penguin, as well as for magazines such as Clarkesworld, Lightspeed and Uncanny Magazines. Now, she’s Kickstarting a new art book called Daydreamer’s Journey, a retrospective of the art that she’s produced over the course of her career.The project just passed its funding goal of
  • Some banks in Finland face card payment problems

    Clients at some banks in Finland have faced problems with the use of their payment cards on Sunday, payment firm Nets said.
  • Android users can now get YouTube’s dark mode

    In March, YouTube revealed that it was releasing a dark mode for its mobile apps, starting with its iOS version. Now, Android users are beginning to get the feature on their apps.YouTube added a dark mode to its desktop site last year, and the company says that it became one of the most requested features for its apps. 9to5Google reports that the feature began rolling out yesterday, notifying users with a prompt. It also says that it can be turned on and off in the app’s settings.Continue
  • Android predictive text keeps suggesting 'sit on my face,' and Google is fixing it

    Google has promised to stop its Android phones from suggesting "my face" when its users text "sit on." 
    Cory Doctorow came close to a disaster when he texted his kids' babysitter, "Hey! Are you free to sit" and Android's predictive text came up with "on my face." 
    SEE ALSO: Here’s how malicious Android apps are sneaking malware onto your phone
    "Needless to say, I have never entered that string into my Android device," he insisted in his tweet. I was SMSing our babysitter wit
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  • Amazon is ending online voting for its TV pilots

    For the last six years, Amazon has turned over the decision to greenlight some of its original shows to its customers, putting the pilots for its shows online for a popular vote. Yesterday, Amazon says that it is ending the practice in favor of its own metrics.At its presentation at the Television Critics Association yesterday, studio head Jennifer Salke says that while they’ll “never say ‘never’,” they’ve begun using their “own testing barometers and s
  • The 3 next steps in conversational AI

    GUEST: Conversational AI is a subfield of artificial intelligence focused on producing natural and seamless conversations between humans and computers. We’ve seen several amazing advances on this front in recent years, with significant improvements in automatic speech recognition (ASR), text to speech (TTS), and intent recognition, as well as…Read More
  • Watch Barack and Michelle Obama live their best life at a Beyoncé and Jay-Z show

    Beyoncé and Jay-Z's On the Run II tour has only been traveling for a few weeks but it's already blessed the world with iconic moments. From hilarious exchanges between the Carters to photographs of the twins, the fans are living. 
    But perhaps one of the most important contributions the tour has given us? This glorious video of Barack and Michelle Obama dancing their hearts out at the latest stop. 
    SEE ALSO: The iconic works of art you missed in Beyoncé and Jay-Z's 'Apesh*
  • Amazon might be working on another phone

    It looks as though Amazon is thinking about reentering the phone market. During the company’s presentation yesterday at the Television Critics Association press tour — in which Amazon released a slew of updates regarding some of its upcoming television projects — Amazon Studio head Jen Salke was asked if the company was working on a new phone, according to TheWrap. She indicated that she’s not only seen a prototype with a new interface, but that she has one in her office
  • Amazon is working on a new Prime Video interface

    Amazon is planning a redesign of its mobile Prime Video interface. During the company’s presentation yesterday at the Television Critics Association press tour — in which Amazon released a slew of updates regarding some of its upcoming television projects — Amazon Studio head Jen Salke was asked if the company was working on a new phone, according to The Wrap. She indicated that she’s not only seen a prototype with a new interface, but that she has one in her office.
    Sal
  • New York Times had to explain Donald Trump's bizarre 'enemy of the people' tweet

    On Sunday, Donald Trump tweeted.
    Most of the time, the president's tweets are occasions for any day ending with the letter "y." But Sunday's missive was particularly notable for what he said. Or didn't say. Honestly, it was kind of confusing.
    SEE ALSO: After Annapolis newsroom shooting, focus turns to Trump's media bashing
    Trump's tweet revealed the fact that he'd recently met with New York Times publisher A.G. Sulzberger at the White House. Their discussion apparently focused on the challenges
  • Michael Cohen's Secret Tapes Top This Week's Internet News

    President Trump's ex-lawyer's recording hobby got the Twitter fingers flying on the internet last week.
  • Cult RPG Shin Megami Tensei is surprisingly great on mobile

    When a beloved video game series makes the shift to a free-to-play mobile experience, it’s not usually a reason to get excited. These transitions rarely go well. Because of this, I wasn’t expecting much from the absurdly named Shin Megami Tensei Liberation Dx2, a mobile spinoff of the beloved role-playing series that spawned the Persona games. It’s a franchise known for surreal and engrossing stories, and deep, complex battles — not exactly things free-to-play mobile gam
  • YellowHead launches data visualization for app store optimization

    Sometimes it’s not just the data you have that makes a difference for your mobile app or game business. It’s also about how you look at it, according to digital marketing agency YellowHead. YellowHead has specialized in app store optimization (ASO), or obtaining mobile users by optimizing an app for the way it can be discovered in an ap…Read More
  • Inmates hacked tablets to transfer over $200,000 into accounts

    Over 300 inmates in Idaho successfully hacked tablets in an effort to transfer thousands of dollars of credit into their accounts. 
    The tablets — made by company JPay — are intended for accessing music, ebooks, games and emails. But because of a loophole, inmates were able to use them to transfer a collective $225,000 into various accounts.
    SEE ALSO: Hackers steal $23.5 million from cryptocurrency exchange Bancor
    As reported by the Spokesman-Review, 364 occupants of five differe
  • Matthew Weiner’s anthology show The Romanoffs will debut on Amazon in October

    In 2016, Amazon Studios inked a $70 million deal with Mad Men creator Matthew Weiner to produce The Romanoffs, an anthology show set in the modern day. At a TCA press tour event yesterday, the studio revealed a short teaser for the show, which announced that it will debut on October 12th.The teaser shows off a background of words in Cyrillic, and reveals a slew of actors associated with the project, including Aaron Echhart, Amanda Peet, Corey Stroll, Noah Wyle, and others. Weiner will direct al
  • Order 9066 is a deep dive into the internment of Japanese citizens during WWII

    In June, the country hit a boiling point after revelations that thousands of children had been separated from their parents as the Trump Administration implemented a new policy. It would criminally prosecute parents who entered the country illegally and place them in a federal prison, where children aren’t permitted. Later that month, the administration backtracked slightly, replacing the separation with indefinite family detention. The situation has invited comparisons to another dark pe
  • Order 9066 is a deep dive into the internment of Japanese-American citizens during WWII

    In June, the country hit a boiling point after revelations that thousands of children had been separated from their parents as the Trump Administration implemented a new policy. It would criminally prosecute parents who entered the country illegally and place them in a federal prison, where children aren’t permitted. Later that month, the administration backtracked slightly, replacing the separation with indefinite family detention. The situation has invited comparisons to another dark pe
  • Rudy Giuliani's puzzling unfinished tweet brings out the best in Snark Twitter

    It's no "covfefe," but really, can anything ever beat that?
    Rudy Giuliani, the former New York City mayor and Donald Trump's perhaps overly talkative lawyer, sent out a tweet on Sunday morning that quickly went viral. 
    SEE ALSO: The internet mocks Alex Jones' conspiracy theory with #SecondCivilWarLetters
    It was clearly a mistake, and may now be serving as a helpful distraction for the beleaguered Giuliani. But it's prompted some first-class responses.
    First, here's the tweet.You
    — Rud
  • Amazon has selected its showrunners for its Lord of the Rings show

    Amazon’s big Middle-earth-set show based on the works of J.R.R. Tolkien is slowly moving forward. During this week’s Television Critics Association press tour, the company says that it has brought on two writers, JD Payne and Patrick McKay to write and develop the series.The two writers are relative newcomers: both worked on the original script for Star Trek: Beyond and were part of the writer’s room for Godzilla vs. Kong, and are writing the upcoming sequel to Star Trek: Beyo
  • The D20 Beat: The DM’s Guild is a fantastic way for D&D to resurrect old settings

    OPINION: Wizards of the Coast made big news this week with an announcement for two new books: Guildmasters’ Guide to Ravnica, which is a new guide for a Magic: The Gathering campaign setting; and Wayfinder’s Guide to Eberron, a new book that’s now available on the DM’s Guild online store. It brings the swashbuckling campaign setting int…Read More
  • Someone got hit by a car doing the 'In My Feelings' challenge and this really needs to end now

    The "In My Feelings" challenge began as an innocent Drake meme and has now officially reached peak insanity. 
    Doing the dance coined by @TheShiggyShow can now get you arrested, fined — and if you're as unlucky as Jaylen Norwood, it can also get you hit by a moving vehicle. 
    SEE ALSO: Drake's moody tweet from 2012 has been brought back as a meme
    In a video shared to his Instagram account, Norwood is seen jumping out of a car and doing the moves we have all come to love/hate. Only
  • The Rise of the Computer-Generated Celebrity

    A new breed of digital star is stealing the limelight.
  • Here are pictures of fluffy dogs we know you want

    Forget Shark Week, it’s Bark Week on Mashable. Join us as we celebrate all the good dogs, which we humans do not deserve.
    When it all becomes too much, it's important to have an outlet. 
    Sure, yoga is good, and reading a good book is nice. But we're here to talk about the greatest activity of all: looking at fluffy dogs. Not just regular fluffy dogs, either. We're talking very fluffy dogs. Like, dogs whose Embark tests would probably come back "100 percent cotton ball."
    SEE ALSO: Peop
  • Brick-breaking arcade game Holedown will be your new subway obsession

    Martin Jonasson is the developer behind some of the most acclaimed mobile games around: twofold, inc. and rymdkapsel. But his latest project, Holedown (available on the App Store and Google Play for $3.99), ditches the complicated puzzle and strategy aspects for a more approachable arcade experience that’s nearly impossible to put down.
    Gameplay in Holedown is similar to last year’s free-to-play chartopper Ballz (created by the controversial Ketchapp Games, who created the viral hit
  • This bouncy ball is a MIDI controller you can use to make beats

    A Kickstarter project called Oddball aims to put a new spin on making music. Comprised of a ball about the size of a lacrosse ball and an accompanying app, the ball behaves as a percussion trigger, making noise whenever it’s bounced off a surface.
    The idea with Oddball is that a sound can be assigned to it, and then that sound is played whenever the ball is bounced. Sensors inside the ball communicate with the app via Bluetooth, and then the sound plays through your phone speakers, headph
  • How to Pick the Perfect Phone Case

    Protect your phone—and your sanity—with this helpful expert guidance.
  • How Cloudflare Uses Lava Lamps to Guard Against Hackers

    Inside Cloudflare's San Francisco office, 100 units of Edward Craven Walker’s groovy hardware help guard the internet.
  • Flying Cars, the Real E-Scooter Riders, and More in the Future of Cars

    Flying cars sound fun! But flying car regulations do not. The baby Airstream is so tiny and adorable! But that baby Airstream's price tag is not. Plus: more ups and downs in the week's car news.
  • When in Nature, Google Lens Does What the Human Brain Can’t

    The visual search tool can identify a California poppy or Pacific poison oak with a single photo, bringing you deeper into the nature around you.
  • Trolls thought I was a man. That saved me.

    This post is part of Me, online, Mashable's ongoing series digging into online identities.
    I was locked in my friends’ bathroom on the phone with my thesis adviser and staring at Reddit. It was snowing pretty hard and though there was a window with some theoretical light streaming in, I felt like I was under a blanket, the flashlight of my attention pointed at a screen that I refreshed and refreshed and refreshed. I was discussing the critical thesis component required for my graduate degr
  • Here's how to plant a tree every time Trump says something dumb about climate change

    Imagine, for a second, that you had one of those stress balls that you could squish in your palm whenever Trump said something about the environment that really frustrated you.
    Now imagine that a tree popped out whenever you used it.
    Treespond, a campaign that allows users to sponsor the planting of a tree in response to Trump's misleading commentary about climate change, launched earlier this weekTreepex, the nonprofit behind Treespond, hopes to harness your political frustration and turn it in
  • SteamVR’s Knuckles controllers are also great for petting cats

    Last week UploadVR wrote about Modbox developer Lee Vermeulen showcasing Valve’s new skeletal input API for SteamVR. Using the original HTC Vive controllers, Vermeulen demonstrated an impressive replication of the user’s thumb movements. After many requests, the developer is back to showcase the same API running with Valve’s new Knuckles controller…Read More
  • Learn to read faster and improve your memory for just $9

    You know how they say people only use 10% of their brain? Yeah, it turns out, that’s total bullshit. 
    We absolutely use most of our brain, almost all of the time. And there’s no magic key that unlocks an unused, possibly telekinetic reserve of mental power. There is, however, a set of techniques that can help you use your brain power faster and more effectively. It’s called the Become a SuperLearner: Speed Reading & Memory course, and while it won’t hel
  • This smart personal air conditioner will save your summer and it's now 25% off

    Comfort is a very personal thing, especially when it comes to climate. What feels like a freezing cold office to you may be completely tolerable to your coworkers. 
    SEE ALSO: This company spent years developing the perfect lighter and now it's on sale for less than $30
    The sweltering heat that keeps you up at night might lull your spouse into a deep, snuggly sleep. In situations such as these, you can either be at the mercy of someone else’s preferences or create your own comfort with
  • Yellowstone won't erupt anytime soon, but a debate still rages about the supervolcano

    Ying Zhou teaches a Geology 101 class to students at Virginia Tech, but after peering deeply into the subterranean world beneath the Yellowstone volcano, Zhou says she needs to modify her lesson plans — for Yellowstone, anyhow. 
    Yellowstone is one of the most heavily-researched volcanoes in the world, and it's believed to be responsible for few mega-eruptions in the last two million years. Volcanologists understand its behavior quite well, and there's agreement that any sort of erupti
  • Watch SteamVR 2.0 track 6 HTC Vive Pro headsets at a VR arcade

    Valve is slowly starting to roll out the foundations for the next version of its SteamVR platform, and developers are already getting to grips with it. VR Arcade operator Tower Tag this week posted the below video. It shows six people, each wearing an HTC Vive Pro headset, using gun-shaped peripherals fitted to the Vive’s controllers. Four of the n…Read More
  • Tech firms should be made liable for 'fake news' on sites: UK lawmakers

    Tech firms like Facebookshould be made liable for "harmful and misleading" material on their websites and pay a levy so they can be regulated, British lawmakers said, warning of a crisis in democracy due to misuse of personal data.
  • Math determines that the more Tom Cruise runs, the better his movies are

    Arguably, Tom Cruise running his goddamn ass off is the glue that holds the Mission: Impossible franchise together. And now, we have math to prove it.
    In celebration of the most recent addition to the franchise, Mission: Impossible - Fallout, Rotten Tomatoes has crunched the numbers to find out exactly how much the man has sprinted throughout his nearly four-decade long career, and whether his running has a net positive effect for his films.
    Spoiler alert: Tom Cruise's running sells more tickets