Technology news

As the hearing has unfolded today at the Senate Judiciary Committee with Dr. Christine Blasey Ford testifying that she is “one hundred percent” certain that Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh sexually assaulted her in high school, the response from many women to the systematic gaslighting of the professor and research psychologist has been frustration, anger, even reliving trauma. Despite the 27 years that have passed since the Anita Hill hearings and the more recent successes of

The first season of Netflix’s new animated fantasy show The Dragon Prince has been generally well received by the public, but one aspect of the show seems to have bugged nearly everyone: the animation. The creators aimed to fuse the benefits of computer-generated graphics with the details afforded by hand-drawn animation, and while the show does seem great in stills, in action, movement can appear distractingly choppy. Speaking to The Verge, the creators say they’ve heard fan feedba

Sony finally backed away from its staunch and hard-headed approach to cross-platform play yesterday, announcing that it would start letting players of Epic Games’ Fortnite use PlayStation-linked accounts on the Nintendo Switch and Xbox One, as well as play against one another on shared servers. The move is a huge win for consumers after the PR disaster Sony suffered back at E3. It may also be the first step in a broader, transformational shift in the console game industry away from the lo

It’s been a week since Amazon’s seemingly annual Alexa-oriented hardware event, but the tech and retail industries will likely be processing the rapid-fire announcements for many months to come. In just under two hours, Amazon announced more than a dozen new products aimed at everything from home audio and entertainment to kitchen appliances and in-car infotainment. The products were rolled out so abruptly and with so little fanfare that it was impossible for most onlookers to keep

The Securities and Exchange Commission has sued Tesla CEO Elon Musk for securities fraud after his aborted attempt to take the company private earlier this summer. The complaint, filed in federal court in the Southern District of New York, shows that the SEC is seeking to ban Musk from being able to hold officer or director positions at publicly-traded companies, as well as any other damages the court feels are appropriate.Musk originally announced that he was considering an effort to take Tesl

The Securities and Exchange Commission has sued Tesla CEO Elon Musk for securities fraud after his aborted attempt to take the company private earlier this summer. The complaint, filed in federal court in the Southern District of New York, shows that the SEC is seeking to ban Musk from being able to hold officer or director positions at publicly-traded companies, as well as any other damages the court feels are appropriate.Musk originally announced that he was considering taking Tesla private i

Last week, the FBI arrested William Gregory Douglas, 35, outside of an Oregon convenience store after he threatened to kill YouTube employees, including its CEO, Susan Wojcicki. Douglas was arraigned Monday and made his first appearance in court, AP reported yesterday. He’s being charged with cyberstalking and transmitting threats in interstate commerce.
Douglas — an ardent believer in Pizzagate, among other right-wing conspiracy theories — tweeted a number of death threats ag

Early this morning Epic Games launched the much-anticipated sixth season of Fortnite, which added a number of features to the game — but not all of them were welcome.
As first noted by Fortnite streamer “Agony,” the update featured elaborate breast animations for the new “Calamity” avatar. It appears that the animations only show up when the avatar emotes in its default skin. In a statement to The Verge, an Epic spokesperson said that “This is unintended, emb

We’ve seen a lot of incredible cameras this week, but Zeiss has unveiled a surprise entry that’s easily among the most interesting: a full-frame, fixed-lens camera with Adobe Lightroom built in.
The camera is in the vein of Sony’s RX1 and Leica’s Q — essentially really fancy point-and-shoots. You can’t change the lens from the attached 35mm f/2.0, but in exchange, you get a full-frame sensor in a relatively (but not entirely) small body.
Zeiss’s ZX1 pla

Apple has announced a new suite of updates for Logic Pro X, its professional music-making software. Most notably, there’s a lot of attention paid to expanding the DAW’s smart tempo feature, which is used to automatically detect tempo across the entirety of a project.
Smart tempo could previously only be used when recording audio into Logic Pro X. Now, it can also analyze the tempo of recorded MIDI performances and imported multi-track stems, can follow along with a project’s e

Microsoft plans to stop supporting the desktop version of Skype 7.0, or Skype Classic as it’s fondly called by dedicated users, on November 1st, while the mobile and tablet versions will be cut off on November 15th. The company announced the change on the Skype blog today, telling users that, “Although you may be able to use older versions for a little while, we encourage you to update today to avoid any interruption.”
The Skype saga has been one of the more contentious for th

With eBay being one of the biggest marketplaces to buy and sell used phones, it makes sense that the site is now offering prepaid wireless plans as an add-on option in the item listing. A checkbox underneath the “Add to cart” button offers a 30-day unlimited wireless plan from Red Pocket Mobile for $29, and an option to upgrade to various 360-day plans when checked.The release of Apple’s new iPhone XS and XS Max, plus the upcoming release of the Google Pixel 3 means it’s

Julian Assange has stepped aside as editor-in-chief of WikiLeaks, with the group saying his departure was “due to the extraordinary circumstances” of him being unable to communicate with anyone but his lawyers for the last six months. Assange has appointed Kristinn Hrafnsson to replace him. Hrafnsson is an Icelandic journalist who served as WikiLeaks’ spokesperson from 2010 to 2016.
Assange has been unable to communicate with the outside world since the end of March, when his

This year’s rush of IPOs from Chinese tech companies has dominated headlines, but what’s more interesting is how quickly they got there.
Traditionally, “going public” represented the gratifying culmination of sleepless nights and missed birthdays that went into building a company. The peak of a lengthy climb, where founders and VCs would finally see the fruits of their labor. 
However, Chinese companies appear to be reaching that peak much quicker than their American

After a brief, exclusive sojourn on Tidal (something that still happens in 2018, apparently) the music video for LCD Soundsystem’s new single (another thing that still happens in 2018, apparently!) is now available to watch on YouTube. Whether you love or could leave LCD Soundsystem is almost irrelevant here, though, because the song, “oh baby,” has mostly become a backdrop for other stars. Namely, Star Wars: The Last Jedi director Rian Johnson, Sissy Spacek, and David Stratha

Solar energy is becoming more and more popular as prices drop, yet a home powered by the Sun isn’t free from the grid because solar panels don’t store energy for later. Now, researchers have refined a device that can both harvest and store solar energy, and they hope it will one day bring electricity to rural and underdeveloped areas.
The problem of energy storage has led to many creative solutions, like giant batteries. For a paper published today in the journal Chem, scientists tr

At yesterday’s Oculus Connect keynote, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg proudly announced that Oculus had completed its first generation of products. A slide splashed three VR headsets across the stage: the casual Oculus Go; the high-end Oculus Rift; and the new, mid-range Oculus Quest. But if you’ve followed Oculus for a while, you might have noticed something missing: the cheap, phone-based Samsung Gear VR.
The Gear VR, made in partnership with Samsung, was technically Oculus’ f

Dressing as a meme for Halloween can be fun. If you’re lucky, you might even find a meme-themed Halloween party to attend, where you can make your own costume to revel with friends in the stuff that’s still good about the internet. Meme costumes are like an inside joke that everyone can enjoy (or not, if you’re niche like that), The downside of that is that, eventually, if you build it, the brands will come.The inevitable trickle-down from creative trendsetters making their ow

If this song doesn't give you chills, I feel bad for you.
Lady Gaga and Bradley Cooper give an unbelievable performance in the song "Shallow" for A Star Is Born, creating a heartfelt, moving track that deserves an award. No, all the awards. Cooper's voice is great. Lady Gaga is transcendent. 
And yes, this the song with the famous Lady Gaga vocal.
SEE ALSO: Bradley Cooper's 'A Star is Born' left critics with stars in their eyes
"Shallow" is the first song released from the upcoming A Star I

Dr. Christine Blasey Ford's testimony on Thursday  before the Senate Judiciary Committee was arresting, painful, and often damning — even for the pundits on Fox News.
After Ford began her testimony on Thursday, Fox News host Chris Wallace told a panel that Ford's testimony and the cross-examination format made this a "disaster for Republicans."
SEE ALSO: Dr. Blasey Ford testifies before 17 male senators and almost no women
"This was extremely emotional, extremely raw, and extremely cr

Okay, we know we freak out over Instant Pot deals on a weekly basis, but even if you ignore all the rest, this is the one to pay attention to.
Amazon is offering the 8-quart Instant Pot DUO (the best-selling Instant Pot model, if you were wondering) on sale for $89.99. It regularly goes for $139.95. Just one of the best Instant Pot discounts we've ever seen, NBD.
SEE ALSO: Best Instant Pot cookbooks on Amazon: Traditional, vegan, Weight Watchers, and more
This 7-in-1 model can pressure cook, slo

Cold brew is the trendy drink du jour for coffee lovers these days. Rather than brewing hot coffee and icing it down, cold brew is literally brewed while, well, cold. This helps to eliminate much of the acidity you'd get from drip coffee.
While you can snag cold brew at Starbucks or Dunkin Donuts, that daily habit can quickly add up, which is why we're big fans of making our own at home.
The KitchenAid cold brew coffee maker is available from Walmart for just $79.93, which is $50 off the origina

A leaked promotional video from the Pixel 3 has shown off the phone’s ability to quickly scan an email address from a business card without even having to take a photograph. The video, posted by MySmartPrice, also appears to confirm the return of Active Edge functionality and gesture controls.This business card scanning functionality is already available as part of Google Lens, where itqs able to create a new contact based on the information on a photograph of a business card. The differe

I really thought I was going to miss the cube.
With the impending launch of season six of Fortnite, I found myself getting a little bit anxious that one of my favorite parts of the game was going away. Tracking the progress of the mysterious purple cube had become a near-obsession for me, one that really highlighted the best parts of Fortnite’s ever-changing world, and how weird and unexpected it can be. But as the sixth season was set to start, the cube sat quietly at the bottom of Loot

Dr. Christine Blasey Ford delivered gut-wrenching testimony to the Senate Judiciary Committee on Thursday — and not to the most representative audience, either.
Kavanaugh's accuser told her story to 17 male Senators and just four female Senators today.  Female prosecutor Rachel Mitchell was also on the panel to assist in the questioning. The eleven Republicans on the Senate Judiciary Committee are all white men. 
SEE ALSO: Someone left a poignant note for Christine Blasey Ford ah

The age of double-digit RAM in smartphones is upon us. 
Leaker Ice Universe (via The Leaker) has dug out a filing with TENAA, a Chinese regulatory body, for Oppo's next Find X variant, which will have a whopping 10GB of RAM. OPPO Find X adds a 10GB RAM version, which will be the world's first 10GB RAMSmartphonepic.twitter.com/ULdntw6X95
— Ice universe (@UniverseIce) September 27, 2018The filing reveals one other tidbit about the phone: it will also have 256GB of storage. There's

Spoilers ahead for previous seasons of The Man in the High Castle.
Science fiction often challenges social and political issues that might be hard to tackle in different genres, so it’s ironic that the closer Amazon’s The Man in the High Castle gets to traditional science fiction, the less relevant to current reality it becomes. Season 3 devotes significantly more time to exploring the series’ multiverse, where some people can travel between different worlds that are mostly de