Technology news

The Super Nintendo really was far ahead of its time.
Bertrand Fan, a senior engineer for the messaging and chat application Slack, recently came across an interesting find. During the mid-'90s in Japan, Nintendo released a satellite modem peripheral for its SNES game console (called the Super Famicom over there).
Known as the Satellaview, Nintendo would beam daily broadcasts to gamers’ consoles. According to Fan, Nintendo actually did this for years, broadcasting content over Satellaview e

Sometimes social media is a good thing.
The anger over a Trump administration plan to curtail the rights of transgender citizens is still palpable. But the Sunday morning eruption that followed the revelations aired in a New York Times report came with a hefty side of advice from the people who knows these issues best.
SEE ALSO: Transgender rights at risk as Trump weighs a narrowed legal view on gender
Trans activists spent the morning and afternoon flooding social media with helpful tips. Chari

The New York Police Department is pulling thousands of body cameras from the field after one of them caught on fire while a police officer was wearing it.
The Daily Beast reports that a Vievu model LE-5 body camera “burst into flames” early Sunday morning while an officer was wearing it right outside a Staten Island police precinctAccording to the NYPD, “an officer retrieved a body-cam for deployment on a midnight tour and noticed there was smoke exiting from the bottom portal

The Star-Spangled Banner has stayed the same, with the same words and the same tune for 87 years, but a Hawai'ian musician reinvented the song while performing the song at a football game in Hawai'i and left quite an impression. 
SEE ALSO: The top karaoke songs from 'A Star Is Born'
The singer, who goes by Willie K., reinterpreted the national anthem by accompanying himself on the ukulele and singing the tune in an original melody of his own creation. 
Isn't it nice to hear a new spin

For years, Elon Musk has been touting the promise of a self-driving car. Well, it looks like that promise is a little further off than Musk previously thought, if it materializes at all.
On Thursday, Elon Musk unveiled a new “lower cost, mid-range” Tesla Model 3 car coming in at around $45,000. At the same time, one eagle-eyed Twitter user noticed another update over at Tesla: the optional add-on “Full Self-Driving” feature was gone.Also available off menu for a week. Was

Slack is a relatively simple chat application with a powerfully complex set of capabilities. Case in point: Bertrand Fan’s “Slack on a SNES” project, in which the Slack engineer figured out how to load messages from a custom channel into a 1995 Nintendo game by way of a spoofed satellite transmission.BS-X: The Story of The Town Whose Name Was Stolen was a SNES game that shipped with an accessory called the Satellaview, which was a modem peripheral for the Super Famicom (the Ja

Just over a year ago, the adaptation of Stephen King's It shook horror fandom with a $123.4 million opening weekend — the highest ever for a horror movie. Now Halloween is here to join the party.
The 40-years-later sequel that opened on Friday picked up an estimated $77.5 million in the U.S. during its opening weekend. That's not quite It levels of success, but it's more than enough to make Halloween's first three days the second highest for an R-rated horror movie.
SEE ALSO: The new 'Hall

The New York City Police Department has been working for years to test and outfit its entire force with body cameras, with a goal of having one for every officer by next year. That plan appears to have hit a snag: a camera worn by an officer in Staten Island last night began smoking and “burst into flames,” prompting the NYPD to pull them from use while it investigates.According to The Daily Beast, the incident occurred around midnight in Staten Island, and involved a Vievu model LE

Selma Blair is starring in Another Life, a new Netflix sci-fi series, but an experience getting fitted for a costume for the show led her to disclose that she has been living with Multiple Sclerosis for years. 
SEE ALSO: Selma Blair says director James Toback threatened to 'gouge' her eyes out, kill her
Multiple sclerosis is a neurological disease that affects the brain's ability to effectively communicate with the body by attacking the central nervous system. Its cause is yet to be discove

John Carpenter’s The Thing is a classic science fiction horror film that has scared audiences for decades. But the film was inspired by an earlier story published in the 1930s, “Who Goes There?” by noted editor John W. Campbell Jr., and it turns out that that there’s more to that story. A researcher recently discovered an unpublished, novel-length manuscript of the story, and a small press is using Kickstarter to publish it.Campbell is best known as the long-time editor

In the future, all companies will be tech companies. Traditional firms must upgrade their technological capabilities to match those of their competitors — else they face extinction. Look at the disruption that Netflix, Amazon, and Airbnb have created in their industries and beyond them: Technology is becoming an integral part of companies’ strategy and competitive advantage. This is where tech agencies come in. There are many types of agencies and approaches, but one is unmatched in

In September, Audi revealed the final production version of its forthcoming electric SUV, the E-tron, which is due out sometime next year. The wait for the car looks as although it’ll take a little longer: Reuters reports that Audi is delaying the vehicle’s release by four weeks due to a software issue.According to an Audi spokesperson, the company needs to obtain new “regulatory clearance,” after some of the vehicle’s software was “modified during the develo

When a Twitter user asked Elon Musk if future Teslas would include a "dog mode" to keep car-bound pets safe and cool while their owner was away, he responded with a simple "yes."Yes
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) October 20, 2018SEE ALSO: Elon Musk steps down as Tesla chairman: What happens next? — Technically Speaking
The idea behind dog mode, a pitch that in this case also included the Tesla displaying a readout of the car's interior temperature to assure passersby that the pet inside is

In one of the Donald Trump administration's most flagrant acts of evil to date, a narrowed legal definition of gender that is currently under consideration could jeopardize the rights of 1.4 million transgender Americans.
A Sunday report from the New York Times makes public an effort spearheaded by the Department of Health and Human Services to more explicitly define gender under the federal civil rights law, Title IX. 
SEE ALSO: Christine Hallquist could become America's first trans govern

There are a ton of podcasts out there, but finding the right one can be difficult. In our column Pod Hunters, we cover what we’ve been listening to that we can’t stop thinking about.
In the beginning of Stitcher’s new podcast, My Dead Wife, the Robot Car, a widower named Matt signs up with a mysterious tech company to work as a test driver for a new autonomous car. After a confusing introduction — the company rep won’t divulge any details about the company or even

Now that Big Bird's original puppeteer Caroll Spinney is leaving Sesame Street after 50 years, people are wondering who can possibly step in to fill his big orange shoesThe Late Show With Stephen Colbert put forth a few... interesting candidates. 
Like Kanye West, Brett Kavanaugh, and Donald Trump. 
It's probably for the best that veteran puppeteers Matt Vogel and Eric Jacobson got the role instead.  Read more...
More about Kanye West, Stephen Colbert, Big Bird, Big Bird Auditions

The man in control of the world's second largest nuclear stockpile is reportedly terrified of taking the stairs.
In earlier, happier times, our leaders were brave. They were courageous warriors. They were decent, educated, sophisticated diplomats. They kept the post-WWII international world order together.
They rode Segways. 
SEE ALSO: This country needs Jimmy Carter's impeccable cardigan collection now more than ever
The Segway, a two-wheeled motorized scooter, first hit the market in 2001

The scooter craze sweeping the nation is now over a year old, which means its been around long enough to start producing its own distinct subcultures. There’s the subculture of scooter “juicers,” people who gather up the devices in the evening to charge them for the next day’s riders. There’s the teenagers who love riding scooters despite the rules prohibiting it. And then there’s the emerging subculture of scooter riders that I like to call “lazy geniu

It sounds like something out of a filthy fairy tale: the mountain tree shrew visits certain species of pitcher plant to grab a bite of nectar, and poop into the plant’s commode-shaped cup. These plants appear to have evolved so that their openings fit perfectly under the tree shrew’s behind, and they’re sturdy enough to support the animal’s weight.
It’s a crappy relationship, in the sense that the pitcher plant is actually crapped on — but the pitcher plant g

It sounds like something out of a filthy fairy tale: the mountain tree shrew visits certain species of pitcher plant to grab a bite of nectar, and poop into the plant’s commode-shaped cup. These plants appear to have evolved so that their openings fit perfectly under the tree shrew’s behind, and they’re sturdy enough to support the animal’s weight.
It’s a crappy relationship, in the sense that the pitcher plant is actually crapped on — but the pitcher plant g

Email is one of the most fundamental forms of business communication today. Not many of us can imagine our lives without it. But with one in every 100 emails disguising a hacking attempt, what can we do to better protect ourselves against those nefarious bandits wanting to get to our sensitive data? Considering that more than 205 billion emails are sent daily across the Internet, one would be forgiven for thinking, with apologies to Mark Twain, that reports of its demise are greatly exaggerated

My YouTube recommendations are weird — usually ranging from videos like “How to cut your own bangs” to “Princess Diana’s death conspiracy theories.” A new suggestion hit my algorithm this week, “✂️Sleep-inducing Haircut💇.” And I regret clicking. The video begins with a blond-haired girl seemingly whispering directly at me: “Hello, welcome to my hair salon. I’m going to be taking care of you.” 

In April, a 25-year-old black woman named Chikesia Clemons was violently arrested by police at a Waffle House restaurant in Alabama. A video of the arrest that went viral shows police pulling Clemons from her chair and throwing her to the floor. In the process, her breasts are exposed and her dress rides up in the back. When she attempts to cover her breasts, the two officers on top of her threaten to break her arm for “resisting.” Clemons’ experience is not unique. In the U.S

Today, 790 million people — 11 percent of the world's population — live without access to clean water.
Two years ago, XPrize, an international nonprofit organization, announced a global competition enticing innovators to find a sustainable and affordable way to bring potable water to those who aren't privileged enough to have it now.
Skeptics told the competition organizers that it was impossible. 
Nearly 100 submissions later, and XPrize found precisely what they were looking f

Have you always wanted a Dyson bladeless fan, but can't justify taking out a second mortgage to buy one?  Well, you're in luck, because the EdenPURE 360 Bladeless Fan is a pretty great alternative, and it's now available at the massively discounted price of $84.99.
The EdenPURE 360 Bladeless Fan uses 66.67% less energy than a regular fan, which means you're going to save on your electric bill and show a little love for Mother Nature. And unlike your one friend who won't shut up about h

Looking to do some shopping? Here are 10 gadgets on sale this weekend:Pionears Wireless Earbuds — 23% off
These little beauties boast a range of up to 33 feet with three hours of listening time — plus, the included carrying case doubles as a power bank that you can use to charge your earbuds on the go. Normally the Pionears Wireless Earbuds sell for $129.99, but you can get a pair at 23% off for $99.99.Image: OrigAudio
Pionears Wireless Earbuds — $99.99See Details
All Mighty To

Amazon’s lineup of Fire tablets for kids is up to $40 off until the beginning of November. Compared to its standard tablet offering, which is cheaper upfront, each Kids Edition tablet ships with a colorful case that protects it from general wear and tear, plus a two-year “no questions asked” warranty that lets you replace it for any reason. You also get a year-long subscription to FreeTime Unlimited, Amazon’s all-in-one service that combines a selection of kid-appropriat