Technology news

We're just three days away from Google's Fall 2018 event, and the leaks are still coming.
Both 9to5Google and MySmartPrice spotted an FCC filing for an "Interactive Video Streaming Device" in September. And now, thanks to Jon Prosser via Twitter we might have our first look at marketing materials for this rumored "Home Hub."
SEE ALSO: Images of Google's new Pixel tablet leak before its October eventHey, speaking of @madebygoogle.Enjoy this "leak" straight from us. Was gonna wait until tonight's

A report in the Sunday Times newspaper says Amazon is currently looking to acquire a “significant number” of retail locations in the UK. These would most likely be used to bring its cashierless Amazon Go supermarkets to the British high street. Sunday Times reporting Amazon scouring UK high street for retail space to open Amazon Go store. Interesting given this was one of the themes of @MarinaKoytcheva’s presentation at the #CCSPredicts event. pic.twitter.com/JBDkqu1q30 &mdash

Apple, Amazon, and Supermicro each released a forceful denial that their systems were tampered with following the publication of a Bloomberg Businessweek report last week, which alleged that Chinese agents introduced microchips into servers manufactured in the country. In a letter to Congressional officials, Apple reiterated its denial, saying that it has found no sign of tampering.Reuters obtained a letter written by George Stathakopoulos, Apple’s Vice President for Information Security,

WatchOS 5 has been available for all users (Series 1 and newer) for a few weeks now. 
Speed improvements and some new watch faces are in tow, but there is another communication method in it. You've always been able to get that Dick Tracy effect by taking phone calls on your wrist, but there is now a Walkie-Talkie app as well.
SEE ALSO: Here’s where Apple hid your Camera Roll in iOS 12 Messages
It's precisely what you think it is. You can now have push-to-talk conversations with other

Listen, the Apple Watch Series 4 might have a larger display and a better processor, but the real news is fall detection.
Yep, there's a feature that notes when you've stumbled and checks in on your well-being. Important note: it's not on by default for those under 65. So in the event that your attempts to trigger it end up causing an injury, it won't help.
SEE ALSO: Apple Watch updates will be huge for Apple's health ambitions
With the feature turned on, the Apple Watch can detect a fall and as

Gather round. The EU has a plan for a big update to privacy laws that could have a major impact on current Internet business models.
Um, I thought Europe just got some new privacy rules?
They did. You’re thinking of the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), which updated the European Union’s 1995 Data Protection Directive — most notably by making the penalties for compliance violations much larger.
But there’s another piece of the puzzle — intended to ‘co

David Harbour is back into the retweet game.
The Hellboy star promised to officiate film reporter Spencer Perry's wedding in full Hellboy costume — that is, if Perry gets 666,000 retweets. 666k
Of this tweet.
Big Red officiates. Full Gear. In his saintly best.
Impossible number?
Think of how difficult it will be for me to get this character ordained by a Christian church😈🙄
(P.S. - I’ll knock off 500k if you can get @artofmmignola to read a poem at the service) ht

The people of New York City got quite the surprise on Saturday night as the Empire State Building put on a wild light show.
The top of the building began lighting up in various colors at around 11:00 p.m. ET, and it continued for about two hours. In addition to the effect, two helicopters were seen the circling the top. 
SEE ALSO: Philips Hue takes the plunge into the bathroom with the Adore line
Perplexed citizens took to Twitter. Theories ranged from aliens coming in for a landing to the

Faraday Future averted disaster at the end of 2017 when it secured a major new investment from the healthcare division of Chinese real estate group Evergrande. But that money — some $800 million — was gone by July, according to a new filing with the Hong Kong Stock Exchange. Now, Evergrande is accusing Faraday Future founder and CEO Jia Yueting of trying to back out of the deal, and says it will take “all necessary actions” to protect itself and its shareholders. News of

This evening, SpaceX is set to launch a used Falcon 9 rocket from California, a flight that will be followed by one of the company’s signature rocket landings. But this time around, SpaceX will attempt to land the vehicle on a concrete landing pad near the launch site — not a drone ship in the ocean. If successful, it’ll be the first time that the company does a ground landing on the West Coast.
Up until now, all of SpaceX’s ground landings have occurred out of Cape Cana

Update October 7th, 10:40PM ET: SpaceX successfully launched and landed its Falcon 9 this evening, marking the 62nd flight of the vehicle. It was also the 12th ground landing for the company, and the first one on the California coast.
Falcon has landed pic.twitter.com/joqphUs1AO— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) October 8, 2018Original Story: This evening, SpaceX is set to launch a used Falcon 9 rocket from California, a flight that will be followed by one of the company’s signature rocket lan

Welcome to Fat Bear Week at Mashable! Each fall, Katmai National Park holds a competition as Alaska’s brown bears finish fattening up for their long winter hibernation. This year, Mashable is getting in on the salmon-munching action. Check back with us all week as we follow the fat bear face-offs each day, and remember to get your votes in for each round. Happy fishing!Fat bear aficionados, it's time to meet your final four.
In an upset that won't soon be forgotten, Bear 32 Chunk took down

Four Elon Musk tweets. One Securities and Exchange Commission lawsuit. Two settlement offers. Then some more Musk tweets taunting the SEC.
While Tesla continues to prove its doubters wrong as an automotive and energy business, the ongoing social media sideshow hangs over its finances. The stock rose to $310.70 per share on Monday, after Musk agreed to settle with the SEC last weekend. But the company ended this Friday around where it had been a week before, at $261.95 per share, seemingly driven

At New York Comic Con this weekend, Amazon released the first look at its upcoming miniseries, Good Omens, based on the classic fantasy novel. At a press event, co-creator Neil Gaiman and members of the cast explained their approach to adapting the book for television.The comedic fantasy novel was a collaboration between Neil Gaiman and the late Terry Pratchett, in which Aziraphale, an angel played by Michael Sheen, and Crowley, a demon played by David Tennant, must collaborate to stop the comi

Imagine that you’re living in some dystopian future, and you have been accused of being an advanced AI, which is outlawed in this society. The penalty is death, and in order to convince the judge who will decide your fate, you can utter just one word, any word you like from the dictionary, to prove that you’re flesh and blood. What word do you choose?It sounds like the setup for a cheesy sci-fi short, but this is actually part of a curious paper from a pair of researchers at MIT on

Scott Wilson, the actor who many knew in recent years as Hershel Greene from The Walking Dead, has died at the age of 76.
The Walking Dead's official Twitter account confirmed it, though the tweet doesn't mention anything about the cause or time of death. Wilson was a star on the show until his character's demise in Season 4, but Hershel's remained a fan-favorite ever since.
"We are deeply saddened to report that Scott Wilson, the incredible actor who played Hershel on #TheWalkingDead, has passe

Add Saturday Night Live's "So You're Willing to Date a Magician?" to the Breaking Hall of Fame.
The dating show sketch, which featured Awkwafina as a bachelorette who's "not feeling too picky right now," was pretty funny on its own. But Leslie Jones laughing so hard she had to hide behind her question card puts it squarely into "delightful" territory. 
Hey, you can't tell us you wouldn't crack up at Kenan Thompson and those nails. Read more...
More about Television, Saturday Night Live, Les

Facebookjust snatched some talent to fuel its invasion of LinkedIn’s turf. A source tells TechCrunch that members of coding interview practice startup Refdash including at least some of its executives have been hired by Facebook. The social network confirmed to TechCrunch that members of Refdash’s leadership team are joining to work on Facebook’s Jobs feature that lets business promote employment openings that users can instantly apply for.[Update 10:30pm pacific: Refdash has j

Steven Aquino ContributorShare on Twitter Steven Aquino is a freelance tech writer and iOS accessibility expert. More posts by this contributorAt Apple’s WWDC 2018, accessibility pervades all  AirPods to get Live Listen feature in iOS 12
I’ve heard it said many times recently by hosts of various Apple-focused podcasts that adapting to the new iPhone XS Max has felt like “coming home.” For these members of the so-called “Plus Club” — the whimsi

The history of scientific discovery is very focused on the discoveries of the West, so it’s wonderful to see this beautiful infographic from Information Is Beautiful, which visualizes what Middle Eastern thinkers discovered before their Western counterparts.Drawing from books about Arab history, as well as Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy and Encyclopedia Britannica, the graphic plots the discoveries of East versus West, by year. For example, almost a thousand years before Copernicus,

Saturday Night Live musical guest Travis Scott joined cast members and host Awkwafina for a sketch about a dance crew that's really into ... game show theme songs?
It is a bizarre and endearing experience to watch a bunch of people dance to the music from The Price is Right and Family Feud, but Scott takes the cake with his Final Jeopardy! moves. Alex Trebek, are you seeing this?
We did miss Kenan Thompson's Steve Harvey impression, though. Read more...
More about Saturday Night Live, Awkwafina,

Following last week’s bombshell report from Bloomberg Businessweek that claimed that Chinese spies infiltrated commercial servers in the US with hidden microchips, the Department of Homeland Security says that it has “no reason to doubt the statements from the companies named in the story.”The statement concurs with what UK cybersecurity officials said on Friday: that they were aware of the reports, but didn’t have any reason to doubt Amazon and Apple’s forceful de

Homeland Security has said it has “no reason to doubt” statements by Apple, Amazon and Supermicro denying allegations made in a Bloomberg report published earlier this week.
It’s the first statement so far from the U.S. government on the report, casting doubt on the findings. Homeland Security’s statement echos near-identical comments from the U.K.’s National Cyber Security Center.
Bloomberg said, citing more than a dozen sources, that China installed tiny chips on

On Friday, auction house Sotheby’s sold a painting by British graffiti artist Banksy for $1.4 million. The piece was a copy of one of the artist’s most famous works, an image of a girl releasing a red balloon, and moments after it was sold, the painting self-destructed, shredding itself while onlookers watched.In a video, Banksy explained that he had secretly installed a shredder in the frame of the painting, titled “Girl with Balloon,” to destroy it if it ever went up f

If investors at some of the biggest technology companies are right, the next big restaurant chain could have no kitchens of its own.
These venture capitalists think the same forces that have transformed transportation, media, retail and logistics will also work their way through prepared food businesses.The Battle Is For The Customer InterfaceInvestors are pouring millions into the creation of a network of shared kitchens, storage facilities, and pickup counters that established chains and new f

The final season of Telltale Games’ The Walking Dead game will be completed. The failed studio reached a deal with Skybound Games to finish the season, the development of which was halted when the studio laid off most of its employees at the end of September.At New York City Comic Con, Kirkman told a panel that his company had come to a deal with Telltale to complete the story. According to Variety, Skybound will work with “members of the original Telltale team to finish the story,&

Ask the average person to name the biggest tech companies in the world and a few names roll out effortlessly. From Iowa to Istanbul, everyone knows Apple, Microsoft, and Facebook; Cisco, IBM, and Adobe. While the name Salesforce may not pack the immediate name recognition of its flashier competitors, the customer service titan still sits comfortably among the Top 20 global tech powerhouses, according to Global Data. That’s because Salesforce has risen to become the unquestioned leader in

I apologize. I get it. You hear “blockchain” and you immediately think “shady get-rich-quick schemes” or “bubble of magical fake Internet money” or “libertarian enfants terribles,” and when a true believer tries to explain to you why you should care, why it will change the world beyond just minting a new set of paper oligarchs, you think “wait, why not just use a database?” I hear you.
And you’re not wrong. In the developed world,