Technology news

Let's start with something positive: Seven extremely cute puppies have been rescued from the wilds of Canada, and are right now on the road (literally) to a better life.
The circumstances of how the puppies came to be stranded on an uninhabited island in the Canadian province of Manitoba remains a mystery, however. Most of the obvious possibilities here lead to some troubling conclusions.
SEE ALSO: Internet, why won't you let me live stream this dog surfing competition?!
The saga of the puppy re

Well played, CBS All Access. Well played, indeed.
Star Trek may be the biggest property CBS owns, and now a new Trek series is coming starring Sir Patrick Stewart once again as his Next Generation Enterprise captain, Jean-Luc Picard. Much like Star Trek: Discovery, it's going to be a CBS All Access-exclusive series.
SEE ALSO: Simon Pegg on how sci-fi can be a better guide to the unknown than religion
That ought to bring a few new subscribers in.
There are many debates over which Trek series is b

Sir Patrick Stewart will reprise his iconic role as Captain Jean-Luc Picard in a new series for CBS All Access. Stewart made the announcement today at this year’s Star Trek convention in Las Vegas.In June, CBS signed a five-year deal with Star Trek: Discovery showrunner Alex Kurtzman to oversee all of the network’s efforts with the franchise. The deal included several shows in development, including a Starfleet Academy series, a series based on Wrath of Kahn, a limited series, and a

Let's be real for a minute: Just because you put "not" in front of something doesn't really mean it is not that thing. 
While Borat is still working on his ability in this area, The Boring Company is handing out its Not-A-Flamethrowers to faithful customers who are eager to get there hands on them. Pick-up parties, as they're being called, started in Los Angeles a few weeks back, and there was one in Washington D.C. on Saturday.
SEE ALSO: Elon Musk’s Boring Company will build a high-s

Facebook has been pushing for AI Bots to handle customer inquiries, and Apple is offering Business Chat for iMessage. 
But where do smaller sized businesses fit into this equation? For them, the AI helpers might carry too high a price tag and, more importantly, cut down on the personalized service a brand can provide.
SEE ALSO: This Instagram influencer started her own clothing line to promote body positivity
Poor Cat Designs based out of Redbank, New Jersey has a unique solution for a cust

It's comforting to know that this cold and harsh 2018 isn't all bad news.
Former NSYNC superstar Lance Bass is apparently about to be the proud owner of 11222 Dilling Street in North Hollywood, California. Most people know it as the home of The Brady Bunch.
SEE ALSO: Justin Timberlake just got involved in the greatest World Cup meme
The classic TV sitcom's iconic home went up for sale in July with a $1,885,000 asking price. It's a palatial 2,500 square foot home built on a one-third acre lot. Yo

UPDATE Aug. 5, 2018, 10:11 a.m. ET
It's not happening, folks.
Although Lance Bass informed the world on Saturday that his offer to purchase the Brady Bunch house had been "accepted," he followed up that announcement with a statement overnight making it clear that he had spoken too soon. The house isn't his. In fact, he's getting the feeling now that he might have been nothing more than a pawn in a bid to drive up the house's value.
"The next day, due to 'unforeseen circumstances,' the same agent

The dogs have gathered. The surf is up. The puppy-sized rash guards are on. And the Dog Surfing Championship of 2018 is underway in Pacifica, California.
But something is amiss. All I want to do is sit back and watch the glory of canines riding sweet waves from my Brooklyn apartment, 3,000 miles away from the Good Boys on boards. Alas, the internet has failed me. 
SEE ALSO: Dog lovers bite back at op-ed calling dogs 'parasites'
Internet, it's 2018 — why the HECK is there no live strea

Chipmaker Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. shut down several of its factories last night after it its systems were hit by a computer virus, reports Bloomberg.
TSMC is the largest semiconductor manufacturer in the world, and supplies components for companies like ADM, Apple, Nvidia, and Qualcomm. The company told Bloomberg that the virus infected a “number of its fabrication tools,” but that the “degree of infection varies” from factory to factory. Several have resu

The season finale of HBO's new corporate drama Succession airs Sunday night, and really, it's best you devote some time to catching up. But don't watch Succession because it's a great drama — binge it because it's, at least in part, a deranged dark comedy.
Succession is a Serious Drama about a billionaire family whose members are all vying for control of its aging patriarch's media empire, Waystar Royco. It's got all the things that make for a good HBO ensemble drama: fancy outfits, trauma

This is One Good Thing, a weekly column where we tell you about the only nice thing that happened on the internet this week.
Ah, Oprah. Is there no greater force of pure good in this world than this benevolent billionaire? Yeah, probably, but who cares? The lovable media mogul consistently nurtures our souls with her book club picks, recommendations for off-the-shoulder cashmere cowl neck sweaters, and her line of hearty soups and sides. 
And just this week Oprah blessed us once more by pro

You can get smart lights and plugs to simulate you being home when you're out, but that costs a lot of money.
The fix? If you have an Amazon Echo or Alexa-enabled speaker this new "Away Mode" skill by Hippo might be the saving grace that doesn't break the bank. 
SEE ALSO: Google announces its first foray into the security key market
It goes a step further than a security system sign in the front yard. "Away Mode" plays conversations, recorded with real-life people — no AI-simulated vo

Fargo has Chris Rock booked to star in its upcoming fourth season, but that's not even the exciting part.
Season 4 of the time-hopping anthology series shifts the setting to the seedy underbelly of Kansas City, Missouri during the 1950s. Rock is set to play the head of an African-American crime family who takes on an unusual challenge.
SEE ALSO: What Exactly Is FX's 'Fargo'? The Cast Explains It for Ya
In a bid to foster peace between Rock's crew and a rival Italian syndicate, the leaders of the

Winnie the Pooh may be a lovable star of the big screen, but that's not stopping China from being petty as hell.
China's film authorities have denied a release to the new live action Winnie the Pooh movie, Christopher Robin, according to The Hollywood Reporter. While China does not release the official reason for any film denial, THR's sources pin the decision on Chinese leader Xi Jinping's dislike of being made fun of... by being compared to Winnie the Pooh.
SEE ALSO: Christopher Robin's Pooh i

While some weeks are better than others to find a discount on big-ticket items, like a television, camera, or sound system, this week is good for stocking up on the smaller stuff.
If you’re headed back to school, or just want to see a handy list of gadget ideas for wherever you call home, check out The Verge’s Back to School 2018 guide. It’s full of stuff that we recommend, and likely contains at least a few things you didn’t know you needed until now.
Until the end of S

LeBron James is one of the greatest pro basketball players in history. He's also using his tremendous success and wealth to help at-risk children in his hometown. And yet, in Donald Trump's eyes, he's "dumb."
Trump resorted to childish name-calling in a Friday evening tweet in which he slammed the intelligence of both James and CNN anchor Don Lemon. The attack was responding to an interview in which James had some mildly critical things to say about the thin-skinned U.S. president.
SEE ALSO: Sar

It looks like iPhone users will soon live in a dongle-less future. Or, at least a future in which audio jack dongles are no longer free.
A Barclays research note viewed by MacRumors says that the new 2018 iPhones will no longer come with the lightning port-to-headphone jack adapter. The maker of the dongle, Cirrus Logic, apparently confirmed the change to Barclays.
SEE ALSO: It's 2018, and dongle hell is still awful
"Cirrus didn't update its FY19 guide… but they did finally confirm the do

Ken Liu is one of science fiction’s most celebrated writers working today. In addition to translating Cixin Liu’s acclaimed Three Body Problem and Death’s End, he’s also earned numerous awards, most significantly for his short story, “The Paper Menagerie”. Now, it looks as though his works could reach a new audience: AMC is developing series based on his works called Pantheon, according to Deadline.
If it’s produced, Pantheon will be an animated show &l

Next week is the start of annual gaming convention Quakecon, where we’re likely to see some news about Fallout 76, the latest installment in a franchise that hit its two-decade anniversary last year. Inspired by Fallout 76 coverage like this essay from my colleague Patricia Hernandez, I started replaying the original 1997 Fallout this summer, then I got sucked into a vortex of Black Isle Studios games. The upshot is that I’ve spent an embarrassing amount of the past two months click

The most exciting announcements in the photography world over the past few years have featured one of two things: mirrorless designs that makes the camera smaller and lighter than it would otherwise be, or a full-frame sensor to produce the best possible images. And the most fun cameras have been, of course, the ones that combine the two, like Hasselblad’s X1D or Sony’s A7 III. Nikon has been awake to this trend, which has prompted the venerable Japanese company to jump in the fray

Big Tech likes to disrupt. But when it comes to papering over the problems it's created, it's happy taking a page out of a well-worn corporate playbook.
Over the last month, Google, Apple, and, most recently, Facebook and Instagram, have all unveiled features intended to give people a better understanding of and control over how they use their phones. 
The features are part of the "Time Well Spent" movement, a phrase popularized in 2017 meant to address concerns about screen addiction, part

Recycling old gadgets is always a good thing, and hardware hacker Jaap Meijers may have come up with the best use for an old Kindle yet: converting it into a clock that (fittingly) tells the time through literary quotations, via Gizmodo. And better yet, unlike many of these types of projects, Meijers has posted full and clear directions for the process if you’d like to try to recreate your own.The core of the hack is pretty simple; you’ll first need to jailbreak your Kindle, then ru

From keeping our inboxes free from SPAM to mining your favorite cryptocurrencies, algorithms are all around us. While we feel like we’re drowning in an ocean of big data, clever algorithms are actually helping us to make sense of it all. And although these algorithms are ruling the world, we seem to know very little about them. How do they work? By whom were they created? I decided to ask the top experts (professors and professionals) which algorithms they think made the biggest contribut

Oppo Find X
$1,165 (€999)View Product
The Good
Highest screen-to-body ratio on any phone to date • Futuristic sliding camera module • Super fast face recognition • High-quality metal and glass body • Long battery life
The Bad
Not available in the U.S. • Doesn't work with Verizon or Sprint • Average camera image quality • No wireless charging • No IP water rating • Really pricey
The Bottom Line
The Oppo Find X is the all-screen phone of tomorrow,

This article is part of Demystifying AI, a series of posts that (try to) disambiguate the jargon and myths surrounding AI. The Wall Street Journal recently ran a piece that detailed how companies that provide email-based services scan the inboxes of millions of Gmail users. By itself, this isn’t a secret. Their service agreements make it clear that they require access to your email so that their artificial intelligence algorithms can provide you with smart features such as

It’s been a rather grim week in the social-media-and-democracy cinematic universe, so let’s end on a positive note … that starts on a grim note!
“Voting systems in the United States are so woefully hackable, even an 8-year-old could do it.” So begins Issie Lapowsky’s look at a competition to be hosted next week at Def Con, the venerable hacking conference in Las Vegas. The competition in question is being hosted by the Democratic National Committee, who you

There's a new prototype on the Kickstarter campaign trail that's designed to fill your belly in a convenient, energy-efficient way — while going completely off the grid.
The GoSun Fusion is a portable hybrid solar and electric oven that can cook family-sized meals with the help of — you guess it — the sun. 
The GoSun Fusion comes from a line of GoSun products that are designed to cook in the cleanest possible way, with the kind of convenience you don't find in a typical ov

If there's only one office tool you should learn how to use, it's Microsoft Excel. You may have already been using it to some degree, or maybe you're just leaving it on your desktop to accumulate digital cobwebs. Either way, harnessing the full potential of the app is key to making your work life easier, and maybe even landing a heftier salary.
To a beginner, it can be intimidating to use the app. After all, once you open it, you're just presented with thousands of rows of cells. What would an E

Aren’t AirPods the best? Sure, we all had some reservations when Apple unveiled these wireless earbuds —  admit it, they look a little silly — but we’ve been pleasantly surprised. In fact, these headphones are one of the best pairs to use at the gym, office, morning commute — just about anywhere.
SEE ALSO: Noise-Canceling AirPods May Be the Future
One caveat: AirPods are by no means cheap. If you’re going to pay $160 for some teeny, tiny hi-tech earb