Technology news

In its fourth season, Charlie Brooker’s dystopian anthology series Black Mirror stirred up some debate over its new dedication to relatively positive endings. The earliest seasons, on Britain’s Channel 4, showcased possible technology-driven futures that ranged between relentlessly grim and merely melancholy. But subsequent seasons, produced and released by Netflix, have been skewing in an increasingly positive direction. Episodes like “San Junipero” and “USS Calli

Microsoft has accidentally confirmed it’s planning black Surface models. The software giant first launched its Surface RT in a black “VaporMG” variant nearly six years ago, and switched to silver options ever since. In an event listing (that has now been removed) for an Surface event in New Zealand on October 16th, Microsoft says Surface is going “back to black.”
While the company doesn’t list the devices involved, rumors suggest Microsoft will announce a Sur

The fall 2018 anime season starts this week with 56 different shows. With so much to sift through, we tried to highlight some that might be interesting for both anime fans and non-fans alike. (Many of these shows are available for viewing internationally a day after they air in Japan, thanks to streaming services like Crunchyroll, Netflix, and Amazon.)If you like high fashion and fightingJoJo’s Bizarre Adventure: Golden Wind
JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure is a bit of a strange series &mda

There’s been no shortage of news around LG’s upcoming V40, including confirmation from LG that the phone would spot three cameras on the rear. What we didn’t know was what each of those cameras actually did; leave it leaker Evan Blass to be the one tell us. As with previous LG flagships, there are both standard and super-wide-angle cameras on board, but this time around there’s a telephoto lens as well. This camera arrangement is significant because not only is it o

Google released Android’s October security update today, bringing with it a few fixes and functional improvements for the company’s Pixel devices. Most notable among the patches is a fix for fast-charging issues which have been affecting 2016 Pixel and Pixel XL phones since the release of Android 9 Pie.Google acknowledged that the OS update broke fast charging between original Pixel devices and some third-party power adapters that lacked USB Power Delivery, but everything should be

In keeping with his reputation as a connoisseur of the proverbial good times, meme-thief and budding lifestyle entrepreneur Elliot “@FuckJerry” Tebele has decided to wade into the crowded and lucrative waters of celebrity-branded liquor. It’s fertile territory: everyone from Marilyn Manson (who has an absinthe called “Mansinthe”) to George Clooney (tequila, Casamigos, sold for around $1 billion) to Ron Jeremy (rum, Ron de Jeremy) has a line. The reasons to branch o

Some new iPhone XS and XS Max buyers have reported poor cellular reception with Apple’s latest phones, and now there’s another issue that might result in you waking up with an uncharged device in the morning. Dozens of users have reported charging issues with their iPhone XS and XS Max devices, and shared their experiences on the MacRumors forums and Apple’s support forums.Specifically, users are experiencing issues where phones will not charge if the Lightning cable is plugge

Google is expanding its use of lucrative search-based advertising tools on YouTube, to help advertisers target potential customers as they search for everything from products to movie trailers on the video site. The news, announced this morning at Advertising Week and reported by CNBC, marks a shift in how Google treats YouTube. Increasingly, the company is relying on YouTube as an extension of its core search engine instead of a separate entity. To help drive home the point, Google representat

It’s hard to find a tech news site that doesn’t have at least one article in the headlines about how blockchain is going to change the world. The decentralized technology behind Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies has been credited with the potential not only to disrupt our modern banking system, but to completely revolutionize industries like healthcare, investing, messaging, and even voting. The way I see it, the blockchain has been completely overhyped. This is a marvelous technol

After months of giving us only brief glimpses of Red Dead Redemption 2, now Rockstar can’t stop showing us gameplay. The latest gameplay trailer shows a myriad of in-game activities, and also finally teases what first-person mode will look like — and I know I’m going to have to give it a try when the game comes out. We’ve known RDR2 would be getting a first-person mode for a while, and it’s not a surprise after the same feature was so well-liked in Rockstar&rs

Google has announced Project Stream, a game streaming service that it is calling a “technical test” with the aim of solving the issues around interactive video streaming. The company has partnered with Ubisoft to stream Assassin’s Creed Odyssey to a test group of users through its Chrome browser on a laptop or desktop.
Google wants to address issues like graphic degradation and buffering
Earlier this year, The Information reported that Google was looking into developing a game

Facebook has named Adam Mosseri, a 10-year veteran of the social network who started as a product designer in 2008, as the new head of Instagram. He succeeds Kevin Systrom and Mike Krieger, who abruptly announced their departure on September 24th. Prior to his new promotion, Mosseri was vice president of product at the photo-sharing company, having moved over from a VP role managing Facebook’s News Feed and interface teams in May of this year when CEO Mark Zuckerberg restructured his enti

Here’s the latest in government-sponsored distributed ledger tech (DLT): England’s primary land registry has its eyes on using the blockchain to supe up its new property tracking system. Her Majesty’s (HM) Land Registry has just announced it will be blockchainifying its new system, Digital Street, as it moves to the second phase of development. It hopes that DLT tech is the key to making its service the “world’s leading land registry for speed, ease of use, and an

Opera today announced the general availability of its newest mobile browser, Opera Touch for iOS. Its killer feature is the ability to surf the Internet on Apple’s latest big-screen phones, especially the truly gargantuan iPhone XS Max. Opera first launched its Opera Touch browser on Android earlier this year. Today marks the first time it’s available on Apple’s mobile devices. To celebrate, the company has created this (somewhat cheeky) promotional video. Feature wise, it sha

Japan’s Advanced Industrial Science and Technology, or AIST, has developed a humanoid robot that can carry out simple construction tasks, like installing drywall. You can watch in the video above how the HRP-5P robot steps up to a piece of drywall, uses hooks to maneuver it into its rotating hands, and nails it into the wall. First spotted by TechCrunch, the robot works about as fast as a teen doing Habitat for Humanity, but still, it gets the job done.
AIST imagines the HRP-5P being used

Earlier this year Apple introduced a new initiative called “Everyone Can Create,” a curriculum focused around using the iPad as a tool for students to learn more about music, video, photography, and drawing. It’s been used by 350 schools as a preview and today, Apple says it’s available to all.
The Everyone Can Create curriculum includes four project guides available in Apple Books with a total of 300 lesson ideas. Each guide contains a series of projects that help stude

Close to a quarter of US households now own a smart speaker, according to research from Nielsen. On average, those who own these devices spend an average of 65 minutes using them on each weekday, rising to 72 minutes on Saturday and Sunday. In Q1 2018, only 22 percent of US households owned a smart speaker – such as the Amazon Echo, the Apple Homepod, or the Google Home – so this two percent rise (to 24 percent) over the last quarter shows that the technology is gathe

We’ve come a long way from Satoshi’s white paper in 2008. Every day we’re pushing the limits of what’s possible on the blockchain, and we have developers to thank for it. That’s why we’d like to offer DLT devs an 85-percent discount on their ticket to Hard Fork Decentralized, our first blockchain and cryptocurrency event. We’re partnering with TRON Foundation, one of the largest blockchain-based operating systems in the world, to make this discount

A hardware hacker from Brasil has developed an automated vending machine that delivers Coca-Cola in exchange for Bitcoin. But don’t get your hopes up, it’ll probably be a while before we see these in the wild. The dev used a handful of off-the-shelf materials like a Raspberry Pi, water pump, touch screen, some wood, and of course some programming know-how, to build the machine. Here’s how the Bitcoin-vending machine works: From the video, it appears that the customer scans a Q

HP is trying something different with its latest convertible laptop, and boldly claiming it’s “reinventing the PC.” While most laptops are housed in an aluminum or plastic chassis, HP’s Spectre Folio is wrapped in leather that morphs into different modes. That might sound like every other 2-in-1 on the market, but you only have to look at HP’s Spectre Folio to see it’s a little different.
HP has created a skeleton magnesium frame that attaches to the exterior

Verizon announced it was working to bring 5G home internet service to a few US cities last November, and opened up pre-orders last month for residents to sign up. The company’s made good on their promise to launch the service on October 1st, and installations are starting today for residents in Houston, Indianapolis, Los Angeles, and Sacramento. Customers will be able to access typical Wi-Fi speeds around 300 mbps and peak speeds up to 1 Gbps.
As part of its rollout, Verizon is offering t

Google is now offering a repair service for Pixel phones that are outside of warranty, reports Android Police. The service will eventually cover all four Pixel phones (including XL versions), although the second generation handsets are set to be within warranty for at least another 12 months after Google extended their warranties in light of user complaints about their build quality.The repair service (which currently only appears to be available in the US) requires you to enter the IMEI number

Over the last year, I’ve been reading Brian Merchant’s The One Device: The Secret History of the iPhone, the story behind Apple’s ubiquitous phone. While I’ve read it off and on for the better part of a year, it’s an engrossing read, delving into every element that makes up the phone, from the battery to the camera to the teams that designed and produced it.What struck me the most about the book isn’t so much the design and creation of the device itself, but

This morning, the Nobel Prize Committee awarded the 2018 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine to two scientists who, separately discovered proteins that “brake” the immune system — work that paved the way for what the committee calls “an entirely new principle for cancer therapy.” The winners are James P. Allison of the United States and Tasuku Honjo of Japan.
The FDA has approved cancer treatments based on Allison and Honjo’s work
Working in the 1990s, both

When I reviewed the unique Caavo universal remote system earlier this year, I concluded that it was probably the most promising approach to home theater control I’d ever seen, but that it was too expensive at $399 — especially since it was complicated to set up and lacked high-end features like HDR and Dolby Atmos support.
Eight months later, the company is back with the Caavo Control Center, which is dramatically cheaper at $99, supports Atmos and HDR10 (with a Dolby Vision softwar

Aeva, a Mountain View, California-based startup founded only just last year, has built what its two-cofounders claim is a next-generation version of LIDAR, the 3D mapping technology that has become instrumental for how self-driving cars measure the distance of objects and effectively see the road in front of them. And today, the company is officially unveiling its product, a tiny box that can more directly measure objects in a given scene and the distance and velocity of those objects relative

On Friday, a massive breach opened up a new front in the war on Facebook. According the the company, more than 50 million accounts were taken over by a kind of login worm, which used a series of unpublished vulnerabilities to hijack session keys on an unprecedented scale. Hackers had full access to any of the targeted accounts — essentially, they could do whatever you can do when you’re logged in — and Facebook is still working to survey the full extent of the damage.
Breach r

Mary Prince was a pretty inspiring woman who is recognised as a galvanising force in abolishing slavery in the British colonies. 
And today, she is also the subject of a beautiful Google Doodle. The 18th century anti-slavery campaigner and autobiographer is pictured standing on a beach reading a book surrounded by white seagulls. 
SEE ALSO: These videos of girls meeting female STEM stars will help you dream big
The doodle is a celebration of her 230th birthday this year.Today's #Google

Whether you are a survival specialist or a casual camper, this fire-starter by SE is the perfect tool. It comes with it's own flint, magnesium bar, and serrated striker. Plus this bad boy is water proof.
Heads up: All products featured here are selected by Mashable's commerce team and meet our rigorous standards for awesomeness. If you buy something, Mashable may earn an affiliate commission. Read more...More about Mashable Video, Camping, Firestarter, Survival Guide, and Survival Kit

Microsoft is holding a media event on Tuesday in New York City. Described only as a “moment of your time,” the event is likely to focus on Surface hardware, Windows 10 features, and Microsoft’s new productivity push to win back consumers. Microsoft’s Surface chief, Panos Panay, will be attending the event and it will be the company’s first big Surface / Windows press event since former Windows chief Terry Myerson departed over the summer. It’s a chance for Mi

Google is rolling out a new commuter-focused update for its Maps service that provides much more information for commuters, as well as letting you control your music from within the app. Via a new commute tab, you’ll be able to see any congestion or disruption on your route before you leave, and you’ll be given specific travel information for each leg of your journey. If you’re someone who loves arriving at the bus stop seconds before the bus itself, then this update is for yo

On Oct. 28, 2012, Savita Halappanavar died in University Hospital Galway, Ireland, due to complications of a septic miscarriage after being denied an abortion. 
Her death — which an inquest ruled was caused by "medical misadventure" — was the catalyst for Ireland's historic abortion referendum. 
SEE ALSO: Prepare to sob at these moving stories of people travelling home for Ireland's abortion vote
Six years on from Savita's preventable death, Emma Watson has penned a moving

Keep all of your valuables safe while you work outThe Running Buddy is the perfect accessory to your active lifestyle. It is water resistant and can hold everything from your phone to your water bottle. 
Heads up: All products featured here are selected by Mashable's commerce team and meet our rigorous standards for awesomeness. If you buy something, Mashable may earn an affiliate commission. Read more...More about Health Fitness, Mashable Video, Commerce, Health And Fitness, and Running Ge

Let me get this out of the way right off the bat: Assassin’s Creed Odyssey is mostly a really good video game. Its version of Ancient Greece might be the most convincing historical setting Ubisoft has yet created, and the world is absolutely jam-packed with things to do. The combat features the same depth as its predecessor, Assassin’s Creed Origins, and climbing up walls and bounding across rooftops feels as good as ever.
The problem is that the game doesn’t feel much like As

October is Cyber Security Awareness Month. It's held to raise awareness of cyber security threats, promote cyber security for individuals and organisations, and to provide resources to ensure that everyone stays protected.
You are probably already aware that the internet poses many threats. It's a dangerous place out there in the wilderness of the web. So how do you protect yourself? 
VPNs can be used to increase your safety online as they allow you to establish encrypted connections over t