Technology news

Amazon is bringing Alexa and Echo devices to Spain and Italy, months after it announced support for Spanish and Italian languages for its digital voice assistant. You can now preorder devices like the Echo, Echo Plus, Echo Dot, Echo Spot, and Echo Sub in Italy and Spain. They begin shipping next week, the company says.It’s likely Amazon wanted to wait until Alexa supported those countries’ languages before selling the devices there, as it has in other international markets. In addit

Back in 2014, The Hold Steady frontman Josh Malerman wrote his debut novel, Bird Box — a chilling post-apocalyptic movie about a young mother trying to get her two children to safety in a world overrun with monsters. The book’s big hook: no one actually knows what those monsters looks like, because anyone who sees them immediately loses their mind and kills themselves, often in spectacular, horrific fashion. So the survivors protect themselves by wearing blindfolds — which lim

Facebook today announced it was offering several new ways for users to incorporate music into their on-site identities — and in doing so, is starting to look very much like MySpace. The company plans to add the ability to listen to music on Stories and Profiles. Starting today, users will be able to use music in Stories. To use it, they just need to tap the “Music” sticker and select the song of their choice. You can select a specific section from a song if that’s all yo

Samsung launched two new Galaxy A series phones in China today, the Galaxy A6s and the Galaxy A9s, via SamMobile. The Galaxy A9s is just a renamed Galaxy A9 for the Chinese market, so it’s still the same mid-range phone with a whopping four cameras on the back. What’s more interesting is the Galaxy A6s, which is Samsung’s first ODM phone, or one produced by another company. According to The Korea Herald, Samsung had been in talks to outsource production of its mid- to low-end

Major international airline Cathay Pacific revealed today that as many as 9.4 million passengers had their records stolen in a data breach that occurred in March. Passport information, including identity card numbers, names, dates of birth, and postal addresses may all have been compromised.The breach also included details about where each passenger had traveled and any comments made by customer service representatives. The amount of data accessed varied among passengers. Cathay also noted that

Tesla has posted its first profitable quarter in two years, its third ever, thanks to the popularity of the Model 3 sedan. The automaker said on Wednesday that it generated $6.8 billion in revenue in the third quarter of 2018 and walked away with $311 million in profit — the most the company has ever made in a quarter.The company finished the quarter with $3 billion in cash, up $731 million from the second quarter of the year. Tesla’s last two profitable quarters came in 2013 and 20

A 4chan poster may have solved part of a very tricky math problem that mathematicians have been working on for at least 25 years. The user was just trying to figure out the most efficient way to watch episodes of a nonlinear anime series, but the result has generated considerable interest from mathematicians around the world who have no way to identify the anonymous user.Yesterday, Robin Houston, a computer scientist and mathematician tweeted about the bizarre intersection of 4chan and mathemat

Tim Cook is done with being polite about ad-tracking. At a privacy conference in Brussels this morning, Cook gave a fiery speech denouncing the current state of data collection and targeted misinformation, drawing on aspects of Google’s ad-targeting system and Facebook’s social profile-building practices. For Cook, that system of data collection, collation, and targeting amounts to a “data-industrial complex,” which threatens both privacy and democracy itself.“This

Microsoft posted the first quarter of its 2019 financial results today, reporting revenue of $29.1 billion and net income of $8.8 billion. Revenue is up 19 percent, and net income has increased by 34 percent. Microsoft says this is a record first quarter, thanks primarily to strong cloud growth.
Surface revenue has jumped 14 percent year over year this quarter to $1.1 billion. This is the first quarter since Microsoft launched its Surface Go tablet in August, and it’s clear Surface is now

The process of catching cheaters in video games is muddled in secrecy: the more developers say, the better equipped deviants are to cheat more efficiently next time around. Recently, however, League of Legends developer Riot Games’ anti-cheat team shared some high-level insights in a blog post as to how they catch perpetrators in the act, and the methods are fascinating.
In League of Legends, there are three primary types of cheaters according to Riot: scripters, who automate actions; boo

Faced with a declining traditional TV segment, AT&T is currently beta testing an Android TV-based device that’s meant to be an easy way of getting DirecTV Now onto the TVs and in front of the eyes of more people. The small set-top box will be more widely available on a trial basis “in the first half of next year,” AT&T Communications CEO John Donovan said today. TechCrunch reported on the ongoing beta period, and Variety first revealed the AT&T device — model

Mobvoi has a new smartwatch on the way: The TicWatch Classic 2, or C2 for short. Fittingly enough, it’s one of the classier Wear OS smartwatches we’ve seen to date – Mobvoi already has some solid entries under its belt – and it comes in at a relatively affordable price of $200. It’s a pleasantly spartan design available in 18mm and 20mm wristband sizes, and it comes in rose gold, black, or platinum. Somewhat disappointingly, rose gold is only available on the small

Yahoo has agreed to pay $50 million in damages for 200 million people in the US and Israel who had their personal data breached, according to the Associated Press. The company also has to provide users with credit monitoring services for two years. California federal court still has to approve the settlement before the payments can be granted.
In 2013, Yahoo suffered a data breach that affected all three billion user accounts. The next year, it suffered a smaller breach that affected 50 million

Every month, a security team at Google releases a new set of patches for Android — and every month, carriers and manufacturers struggle to get them installed on actual phones. It’s a complex, long-standing problem, but confidential contracts obtained by The Verge show many manufacturers now have explicit obligations about keeping their phones updated written into their contract with Google.A contract obtained by The Verge requires Android device makers to regularly install updates f

Charles Harder, part of President Donald Trump’s legal team, is pushing the Supreme Court to hear a lawsuit that could weaken legal protections for web platforms. Harder’s firm announced yesterday that it had filed a petition in Hassell v. Bird, a defamation case that California’s Supreme Court decided in July. The court ruled that recommendations site Yelp couldn’t be forced to remove a defamatory review from its site, based on Section 230 of the Communications Decency

Some users have been experiencing issues with the Google Podcasts app, reporting instances of episodes not loading or trending lists and suggestions not showing up, via Android Police. Users on Google Play help forums and Reddit are sharing their experiences, and some have been unable to access new episodes on their Google Podcasts app for up to a week.The issue appears to be a bug related to the Google app beta program, as users are reporting that exiting the program brings back Google Podcast

Mobvoi announced another addition to its smartwatch lineup at an event in London today: the TicWatch C2 (Classic 2). The $200 watch runs Wear OS and is equipped with NFC to support Google Pay. It comes in rose gold, black, and platinum colors. (The rose gold version is slightly thinner for smaller wrists.) The watch is available for preorder now, and it’s set to launch on December 6th.
The C2 is the sequel to Mobvoi’s original TicWatch 2, which first launched on Kickstarter. Mobvoi&

Micro-drones are nifty little things: small, fast, and agile. But they’re not the strongest machines around, and are barely capable of exerting more force than a small mouse head-butting your ankle. Until now. Scientists from Stanford University and EPFL in Switzerland have created a micro-drone with a built-in winch that’s capable of lifting up to 40 times its own weight and performing simple mechanical tasks like opening a door.The key to the design is the use of interchangeable a

On Wednesday, explosive devices were sent to CNN headquarters at the Time Warner Center in Manhattan. Bombs were also sent to former President Barack Obama and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, in what New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio is calling “an act of terror.” This spate of would-be bombings have cast light on a little-known device used by police to haul away the explosive material called a “total containment vessel,” or TCV.
“It sounds like a hamme

When Sony revealed earlier this year it was working on a way for PlayStation gamers to change their IDs after 12 years, most — including us — were excited about the prospect. Now, as more details surfaced this week about exactly how name changes will work, it’s got use more than a little nervous. From the sounds of the list of potential pitfalls, we’re suddenly not too keen on the idea. The amount of caveats to changing your name is a little galling — not because t

The New York attorney general has sued Exxon Mobil for deceiving investors about how much climate change will affect its business. It’s the latest legal trouble for the fossil fuel corporation, which has long been under investigation by the New York attorney general, in addition to being sued by cities on both coasts.According to today’s lawsuit, Exxon claimed that its business would be fine even given increasing climate change regulation. In reality, the suit alleges, the company &

Facebook is rolling out more music features today, bringing more ways to integrate its licensing partnership with all three major labels into Stories, user profiles, and its Lip Sync Live feature.Starting today, users will be able to add music stickers to their Facebook Stories. You can search for songs, pick out the part you want to share, and add the sticker with the artist and song name. It works exactly the same way as it does on Instagram Stories, which introduced the feature in June.
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A team of super fans today released a huge mod for Obsidian Entertainment’s Fallout New Vegas into open beta. Dubbed “New California,” the free add-on works with PC versions of the game, and it’s available for download now. Don’t feel bad if you weren’t aware of New California. This fan-made project was created by Brandan Lee, Rick Hukkanen, and other members of the modding community. It’s not an official product published by Bethesda. But that doesn&rs