Technology news

Chinese operatives allegedly poisoned the technical supply chain of major US companies, including Apple and Amazon by planting a microchip on their servers manufactured abroad, according to a Bloomberg report today. The story claims that one chip, which was assembled for a company called Elemental by a separate company called Super Micro Computer, would allow attackers to covertly modify these servers, bypass software security checks, and, essentially, give the Chinese government a complete bac

Yet another Google product has leaked before the company’s October 9th Pixel event, and this time, it’s a Smart TV kit that bundles a Google Home Mini and the new, unannounced third-generation Chromecast. In a Reddit post that has since been deleted, a retail employee posted a photo of the upcoming Smart TV kit with the caption, “Just got these bad boys in at work today.” It’s unknown where the Reddit user works, but we can guess that the product is from Walmart, b

Instagram today revealed it’s introducing nametags, a scannable calling card you can use to find and follow people you meet in the flesh on Instagram, without any of the hassle of searching. The nametag contains your handle, as well as a picture. You can customize the background with different colors and emoji, or selfies if you so choose. When you scan one, you’re taken directly to that person’s Instagram profile. It smacks more than a little of Snapchat’s Snapcodes, bu

Will Elon Musk ever learn? Even after being fined $20 million for a single tweet and sued for fraud ... he's back.
Tesla CEO Musk may have settled with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission over that August tweet claiming he had the funds to take his electric car company private, but that hasn't stopped the eccentric billionaire from tweeting. 
SEE ALSO: Elon Musk sued by SEC for Tesla privatization tweet
And he isn't just tweeting silly cat pics. No, he's going for the jugular with t

Google’s censored search engine and news app for China has seen a considerable amount of controversy since news of the project first broke, but it may have just gotten its biggest pushback yet in the form of direct opposition from the Trump administration. According to The Wall Street Journal, Vice President Mike Pence commented today in a speech that Google’s modified search engine — currently under the codename Dragonfly — would “strengthen Communist Party censor

Tesla has published its first quarterly vehicle safety report, which CEO Elon Musk promised in May would show “exactly what Autopilot’s safety [level] is.” In it, the company says Tesla owners got into one “accident or crash-like event” every 1.92 million miles driven without Autopilot during the third quarter of this year. When drivers did use Autopilot, Tesla says, they experienced one accident or crash-like event every 3.34 million miles.Tesla doesn’t incl

Tired of shooting photos with your phone? Might be time to jump to a DSLR and channel your inner photo-pro. 
The Canon EOS Rebel T6 Double Zoom Kit is currently $499 at Walmart, which is $250 off the listed $749 price.
The Canon Rebel T6 is the ideal camera for anyone just starting out in photography. Canon cameras are typically more user friendly in design, with a straightforward button layout and easy-to-understand programs. And while the specs aren't in the realm of Canon's full frame ca

Good news everyone, we have a new world leader!
An 8-year-old girl pulled an ancient Viking sword out of a lake during her summer vacation, securing her destiny as savior of the world. 
Saga Vanecek — because of course her name is Saga — unearthed the sword in Tånnö, Sweden while skipping rocks. She told the Local that she found "some kind of stick."SEE ALSO: What I learned on the longest, craziest electric bike ride of my life
"I picked it up and was going to drop it

Square is introducing a new payment option for small businesses to let customers pay for large purchases in monthly installments. Called Square Installments, payment plans can be used for purchases ranging from $250 to $10,000, and customers can choose to pay over three, six, and 12 months. Annual percentage rates will vary from 0 to 24 percent APR.
The feature is available now in 22 US cities for businesses using Square, and customers have to be preapproved before they can start financing. Mos

People are definitely spending bitcoin, just maybe not the kind of people proponents of cryptocurrency adoption had in mind. 
A lengthy indictment from the Justice Department dropped today, accusing seven Russian intelligence officers of conspiring to hack anti-doping agencies around the world in retaliation for their efforts to expose Russian athletic doping. And, at least according to the US officials, the GRU hacking group mined bitcoin to fund its efforts. 
SEE ALSO: Cryptocurrency

A typical fall scene is one that normally consists of red, yellow, orange, and brown leaves dotted across an entire valley. But the way Utah does fall will totally change the way you think of this season.
In this drone video uploaded by Justin McFarland, you'll feel like you're on a fantastic aerial trip inside the Willy Wonka factory —minus the creepy and crazy incidents. The hot pink, dark purple, and soft lavender colors of the trees near the Snowbasin resort in Utah will make you want

Thanksgiving is coming.
Just imagine how great those turkey legs would taste fried. Or what about a deep-fried cookie — or piece of apple pie.
Hey, it's 2018 and you can do whatever the hell you want. 
If you're looking for a "healthier" alternative to deep frying though, then air frying is where it's at.
The Black+Decker Purify Air Fryer is available at Walmart for $81.99, which $68 off the listed price of $149.99, and is ready to take your kitchen game up a notch.
SEE ALSO: 7 of the

HMD Global, the company that releases Nokia smartphones, announced its new flagship product today, the Nokia 7.1, and along with it, two new accessories: True Wireless earbuds and the Nokia Pro Wireless Earphones.
The Nokia True Wireless Earbuds provide up to 3.5 hours of use time, are waterproof, and come with a case that can charge the earbuds up to three times (for a total of 16 hours of play time). The Pro Wireless earbuds are connected to a neckband, have up to 10 hours of use, and have a

Dunder Mifflin Scranton is back in business, baby.
Thanks to the ambitious and exceedingly nostalgic minds who brought the world parody musicals based on Friends, Full House, and Saved By The Bell, everyone’s favorite paper company employees get to live — and sing — on in The Office! A Musical Parody.
The delightful homage to some of the best moments in The Office kicks off by taking you back to the beginning — the day when, for some mysterious reason, a documentary crew

Whether you’re planning on taking a vacation or your daily commute leaves you racing into the house with less than 6% left in your smartphone battery, you could probably use a portable battery pack. Or perhaps you know someone who does. 
These five backup power banks are perfectly suited for whatever your mobile charging needs may be — and they're all on sale.Extreme Boost 20,000mAh Backup Battery — save $54Image:aduroIf you tend to carry several devices, you should check

Both Apple and Amazon are vehemently denying claims that their servers were compromised by Chinese spies following an explosive report from Bloomberg on Thursday. The report claims that spies were able to infiltrate some of the country’s biggest tech companies by inserting microchips the size of “a grain of rice” into Chinese-manufactured servers, part of the tech giants’ infrastructure. The report alleges that the companies discovered the chips on their own and notified

The Pixel 3 has to be one of the most leaked phones in recent memory, but with the launch date in less than week, the reveals just keep piling on. According to Android Headlines, Google is planning to introduce a pink variant of the Pixel 3. It’s pretty pale, and apparently Google is branding it as ‘Sand.’ It doesn’t look particularly appealing to me from the leaked renders, but hopefully it’ll be better in person. Android Headlines also notes that i

Bird is experimenting with a new concierge service, in which the startup will deliver a dockless, electric scooter straight to a person’s house or place of employment upon request. Dubbed “Bird Delivery,” the new service promises an electric scooter delivered to your door by 8AM. It’s a sign that Bird wants to become synonymous with customer convenience as a dozen scooter companies jockey for position in cities across the US.
Bird Delivery is currently being beta-tested

Of all the things to add to the blockchain, wine makes a lot of sense. Given the need for provenance for every grape and barrel, it’s clear that the ancient industry could use a way to track ingredients from farm to glass. VinX, an Israeli company founded by Jacob Ner-david, is ready to give it a try.
According to a release, the plan is to create a “token-based digital wine futures platform based on the Bordeaux futures model” that lets you track wine from end to end “at

Every holiday has its own unique flavor of maimings and maulings, and as we approach Halloween, a government agency has a warning: beware of pumpkin lacerations.The US Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) is in charge of keeping us safe from our own belongings, and its Twitter account often posts darkly funny warnings about common hazards, particularly around the holidays. For Christmas, the commission rolls out burning trees. At the Fourth of July, we can watch fireworks decapitate and di

Facebook wants to burst your filter bubble.
A new patent — filed last March but just made public — details one way Facebook may push back on political echo chambers in its News Feed. Titled "Systems and Methods for Providing Diverse Content," the patent explains how Facebook could use its News Feed to surface alternative viewpoints about political content. 
SEE ALSO: Americans' relationship status with Facebook: 'It's Complicated'
In essence, the tool described would detect cont

We’ve gotten a few mini-spotlight clips in the run-up to Daredevil’s long-awaited third season, but today Netflix delivered the full two-and-a-half-minute trailer, and boy, is li’l Mattie Murdock good at ruining his own life!
Maybe all those recurring head injuries are starting to have some negative side effects?
When we last left the Devil of Hell’s Kitchen in the Netflix team-up series The Defenders, the lawyer-vigilante was all but dead. But comic book stories being c

A new Kickstarter has popped up for a portable turntable with a detachable Bluetooth smart speaker. Called DUO, the hybrid design turns the idea of a traditional record player into a compact, multi-functional system.
It’s a bright, fun-looking unit that sort of looks like if IKEA expanded its Teenage Engineering line to include a sewing machine. The top portion has the turntable, which has a reduced platter size that’s only 3.2 inches in diameter — one fourth the size of a sta

You may recall Rylo from this time last year, when the imaging startup launched a creative take on the 360 camera. The company’s been fairly quiet in the six months since it launched some new software tricks, but a new round of funding should help the company take some key steps toward spreading the gospel.This week, Rylo announced that it has secured a $20 million Series B, led by Icon Ventures. That brings its total up to $35 million, with help from Accel Partners and Sequoia Capital. Pl

Live news: it's full of surprises. Including ... mysterious animals?
Morgan Saxton, a broadcast journalist for KUTV in Salt Lake City, Utah, kept on reporting even when an unexpected animal entered the camera frame. "What you're seeing is actually a dog coming into our live shot," she said with a calmness to which we cannot relate. 
"I think it's a dog," she added. "I'm not sure."
Viewers, however, did not think it was a dog at all. On a version of the clip uploaded to YouTube, most comment

Square today launched a new service that will allow its small business sellers to offer financing to their customers. SquareInstallments, as the service is called, will be available at launch to sellers in 22 U.S. states for purchases between $250 and $10,000. Customers can apply to pay for their purchase over 3, 6, or 12 months’ time.
Interest rates for the purchases will range between 0 and 24%, Square says, and decisions on approvals will be made in real-time.
The company designed the p

Twitter has a new therapist. Surprise, surprise, it's a frozen steak brand.
Last week, the legendary frozen meat Steak-umm had a Network-style outburst on Twitter, touching on everything from college debt to unemployment to millennial nihilism. Steak-umm had been building up to this moment for months, having previously explored the relationship between love and beef and waged Twitter war against fellow 'woke' industrial food brand Moon Pie. 
The brand's recent monologue was its most explosi

A new report claims tiny chips attached to Chinese-made motherboards have been used to spy on American companies, including the likes of Apple and Amazon. To say both companies strongly disagree would be an understatement. The report, published by Bloomberg Businessweek, alleges that groups affiliated with the Chinese government infiltrated factories supplying startup Supericro in order to attach the chips to the motherboards. Bloomberg‘s report cites multiple sources from both 

Chris Evans is officially done with Avengers: Infinity War, and his last day on set was "emotional...to say the least."
Saying goodbye to a character you've played for eight years is certainly an emotional experience, but knowing Marvel, Cap will have quite the send off. In fact, we think he died.
SEE ALSO: There may be some hidden 'Avengers 4' clues in this Russo brothers set photoOfficially wrapped on Avengers 4. It was an emotional day to say the least. Playing this role over the last 8 years

HMD Global has mostly been releasing midrange Nokia smartphones with a focus on Asian markets, but today, the company announced a new Nokia 7.1 device that will be released in the US and UK. The flagship smartphone, affordably priced at $349 (£299), will be available for preorder starting tomorrow on Amazon, Best Buy, or B&H, and it will start shipping on October 28th in the US and on the 17th in the UK.
Nokia claims that the 7.1 is the first phone to launch its “PureDisplay scr

Verizon no longer sells Google’s Pixel 2 smartphone, ending the device’s retail run just days before the Pixel 3 and 3 XL are due to be announced in New York City. Droid Life first noticed the change. Verizon was still selling the five-inch Pixel 2 as recently as late last month, according to the Internet Archive. Google continues to offer the unlocked device, but only in the 64GB storage option. The retail EOL (end of life) is evidence that Google (or at least Verizon) won’t