Technology news

California-based electric car startup Faraday Future might have a strange new ally in its roiling fight with main investor Evergrande: the Trump administration. The Office of the United States Trade Representative (USTR) issued an update on Wednesday to its “Section 301” investigation into China’s alleged practices of intellectual property theft and technology transfer, and Faraday Future was listed among the many examples cited in the refreshed report.
The USTR says in the re

My partner's arms are longer than mine, so, on election day this year, I made him take the #IVoted selfie. 
Now, I'm not one for selfies, usually. But I decided to share my act of civic participation on social media earlier this month for two reasons. First, because I was genuinely jazzed to vote. It was my first time doing so in person! It was exciting! And second, I'd just learned that posting photos with sticker proof of your buy-in to the democratic system is actually an impactful way t

China’s biggest app, WeChat, partnered with InterContinental to open a smart hotel in Shanghai that lets users book rooms, remotely check in, and use their phones as key cards — all without requiring human assistance. Once they’ve completed their reservation, travelers verify their identity at the hotel through facial recognition and collect their digital key card. Although the hotel is 88 feet underground, it’s connected enough to provide quick internet services, accord

Amazon thinks it's already said more than enough, thank you very much. 
Starting on Nov. 20, the Seattle-based behemoth began notifying an unknown number of customers via email that, well, something had happened to their data. Specifically, that those customers' names and email addresses had been "disclosed." But anything beyond that? Haha wouldn't you like to know.
The company declined to comment when asked by Mashable how many customers were affected, what caused the leak, when the leak w

Wildfire smoke hung in a hazy heavy cloud over parts of California this month, but it won’t stay for much longer. Rain is in the forecast, which could bring some relief from the poor air quality that’s blanketed parts of the state. But what happens to smoke after it is lofted into the air and starts interacting with air currents and weather is far more complicated than it might appear.
The smoke that billows out from a wildfire is incredibly complex. In addition to solid particles l

Don’t panic! Life imitates art, to be sure, but hopefully the researchers in charge of the Cognitive Architecture for Space Exploration, or CASE, have taken the right lessons from 2001: A Space Odyssey, and their AI won’t kill us all and/or expose us to alien artifacts so we enter a state of cosmic nirvana. (I think that’s what happened.)
CASE is primarily the work of Pete Bonasso, who has been working in AI and robotics for decades — since well before the current vogue o

A win for privacy on LinkedIncould be a big loss for businesses, recruiters and anyone else expecting to be able to export the email addresses of their connections. LinkedIn just quietly introduced a new privacy setting that defaults to blocking other users from exporting your email address. That could prevent some spam, and protect users who didn’t realize anyone who they’re connected to could download their email address into a giant spreadsheet. But the launch of this new set

One day after experiencing a massive outage across its ad network, Facebook, one of the most important online advertising platforms, is still seeing “intermittent” issues for its ad products at one of the most critical times of the year for advertisers.
According to a spokesperson for the company, while most systems are restored there are still intermittent issues that could affect advertisers.
For most of the day yesterday, advertisers were unable to create and edit campaigns throug

Instagram announced on its press site today that the company is testing out new user profile layouts. “Over the next several weeks, you may see features re-arranged at the top of your profile including changes to icons, buttons and the way you navigate between tabs,” the blog post explains. Your photo grids will be safe, though, so you can breathe easy.
Examples of potential changes can be seen above. The most notable part of the redesign is that follower counts appear to be de-emph

Verizon is close to adding dual SIM and eSIM support after an initial delay meant its network wouldn’t be able to work with the iPhone XS, XS Max, and XR’s touted dual SIM capabilities. In an internal memo that was leaked to 9to5Mac, Verizon tells employees it’s now expecting to launch dual SIM support with an eSIM and a physical SIM paired together in early December.
Apple initially announced that Verizon, T-Mobile, and AT&T would all support dual SIMs. But Verizon custom

Apple’sHomePod is a distant third behind Amazon and Google when it comes to market share for smart speakers that double up as home hubs, with less than 5 percent share of the market for these devices in the U.S., according to one recent survey. And its flagship personal assistant, Siri, has also been determined to lag behind Google when it comes to comprehension and precision. But there are signs that the company is intent on doubling down on AI, putting it at the center of its next genera

Kevin Guo Contributor Kevin Guo is the CEO and co-founder of Hive.
For most Americans, the thought of cars autonomously navigating our streets still feels like a science fiction story. Despite the billions of dollars invested into the industry in recent years, no self-driving car company has proven that its technology is capable of producing mass-market autonomous vehicles in even the near-distant future.
In fact, a recent IIHS investigationidentified significant flaws in assiste

It isn’t always easy to pick something to watch if you’re reuniting with your family over the holidays. Tastes vary radically between generations and individual family members, so does tolerance for sex, violence, profanity, conflict, religious or political messaging, or even specific genres. Each family is different, but in the wide world of streaming media, there’s always going to be something that hits the sweet spot and saves you from having to endure NCIS or The Big Bang

This Thanksgiving how-to might give you a headache.
Redditor u/Dently stumbled across the mindblowing video uploaded in 2015 and posted it to r/videos. 
SEE ALSO: An entire Thanksgiving dinner reimagined as ice cream
"Found this freaky optical illusion while watching a cooking video," they wrote. "Stare at the center of the brine until the scene changes."If you look into the swirling brine before the next shot, you'll see the turkey's skin start to spin too. It's wild. 
Other Redditors

The latest data from Inrix paints a dismal picture for folks traveling Wednesday (that’s today!) ahead of the Thanksgiving holiday.
Drivers in Boston, New York City and San Francisco will see the largest delays with drive times nearly quadruple the norm, according to AAA and Inrix, which aggregates and analyzes traffic data collected from vehicles and highway infrastructure.
AAA is projecting 54.3 million Americans will travel 50 miles or more away from home this Thanksgiving, a

Black Friday is a great time to shop for phones, but unless you’re buying an unlocked phone, you have to keep one thing in mind: there are almost always strings attached. You have to activate a new line, or be slowly reimbursed the money, or trade something in to get nearly every one of these deals.
That’s frustrating, but it isn’t always as bad as it sounds. If you’re happy with your carrier, or if you planned to open a new line anyway, these confusing terms could very

The super popular robot vacuum by iRobot — the Roomba 960 — is on sale for just $415.99, or $283.01 off its list price on Amazon, with a coupon that will be calculated at checkout. This is the best price we've *ever* seen on this item, so you should probably get on that.
Tidying up around the home is tedious enough, but taking on this terrible task on a daily basis will drive anyone bonkers. Thankfully, the iRobot Roomba 960 robot vacuum will take the chore out of doing your chores w

This post is part of Hard Refresh, a soothing weekly column where we try to cleanse your brain of whatever terrible thing you just witnessed on Twitter.We've all come across babies who seem older than they really are — by about, um, 70 years.
Often, it's temporary. I, for one, looked like my mother's tax accountant until I was six-months-old. And I've come across more than one infant who looks like they'd rather play solitaire on the computer than make dumb faces at millennials.
The subred

Facebookhas recruited Kate Patchen, a veteran of the U.S. Department of Justice who led its antitrust office in Silicon Valley, to be a director and associate general counsel of litigation.
Patchen takes up her post amid ongoing scandals and reputation crises for her new employer, joining Facebook this month, according to her LinkedIn profile.
The move was spotted earlier by the FT, which reports that Facebook also posted a job listing on LinkedIn for a “lead counsel” in Washing

This post is part of our High-tech High series, which explores weed innovations, and our cultural relationship with cannabis, as legalization in several U.S. states, Canada, and Uruguay moves the market further out of the shadows. Move over, slime videos. There's a more lit ASMR niche to fill.
Aside from the joys of actually getting high, the wave of marijuana legalization has also ushered in something almost as satisfying: dab melt videos. The golden, bubbly THC extracts are like psychedel

Apple probably didn’t intend to let competitors take advantage of Siri Shortcuts this way, but you can now launch Google Assistant on your iPhone by saying “Hey Siri, OK Google .”
But don’t expect a flawless experience — it takes multiple steps. After updating the Google Assistant app on iOS, you need to open the app to set up a new Siri Shortcut for Google Assistant.
As the name suggests, Siri Shortcuts lets you record custom phrases to launch specific apps or feat

Facebook is appealing the £500,000 fine levied by the UK’s data watchdog over the Cambridge Analytica scandal, the social network has confirmed. It says the decision taken by the UK’s Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) is unjustified, and that the regulator found no evidence that UK users specifically had their information improperly shared. The news comes on the day Facebook’s right to appeal was due to expire.Facebook’s lawyer, Anna Benckert, said that

Drone.io, makers of the open-source Drone continuous integration/continuous delivery tool (CI/CD), announced Drone Cloud today, a new CI/CD cloud service that it’s making available for free to open-source projects. The company is teaming with Packet, which is offering to run the service for free on its servers.
Drone.io co-founder Brad Rydzewski says his company is “a container-native continuous delivery platform, and its goal is to help automate the developer workflow from testing t

When virtual reality company The Void released its first collaboration with ILMxLab, Star Wars: Secrets of the Empire, the mission was pretty straightforward. Star Wars fans want nothing more than to step inside the world of that franchise, so the experience, which lets participants play Rebel spies infiltrating an Imperial base, had to deliver something that looked and felt as much like Star Wars as possible. It did exactly that, and Secrets of the Empire has become a marquee title for The Voi

A whole new year is right around the corner, and you know what that means for Samsung: a new Galaxy phone.
As the company prepares to launch its next flagship Galaxy phone (expected to be called the Galaxy S10) early next year, several reports of leaked features suggest the plan of attack is the same as it's been: overwhelm rivals with tons of new features.
SEE ALSO: Google's Night Sight shooting mode for the Pixel 3 is mind-blowing
The latest S10 whispers come from the Wall Street Journal. The

According to Amazon’s new deal with Apple, the popular online retailer is now directly selling some of Apple’s products, and the first wave of devices is available starting today, via MacRumors.So far, a host of Apple’s products have already shown up on Amazon, including Macs, MacBooks, iPads, Apple Watches, and even the Apple TV. (One would think that it would be banned for competing too closely with Amazon’s Fire TV devices, similar to how Amazon isn’t stocking t

Microsoft is adding its own digital health feature to its Android launcher app. While Google has added a similar feature to Android Pie, Microsoft’s Launcher will let any Android users access the ability to track how long apps are being used for. You can track screen time, app usage, and even the amount of times you’ve unlocked your phone. Microsoft Launcher is supported on Android 4.2 and above, so it opens the digital health feature up to a lot of Android users.The latest 5.1 upda

Twitch is offering a break from holiday madness and too much family time with a Pokémon marathon that kicks off on Thanksgiving. The platform is airing the first five seasons of the animated show, starting at 1PM ET on November 22nd. The marathon will continue until 8PM ET on December 3rd.The marathon is the latest leg in Twitch’s plan to air 19 seasons and 16 movies, an endeavor it kicked off in August. Rather than a year-long event, the streaming service has been streaming in spr

Maybe you already own a smart speaker, but you want one for every room. Or maybe you’re truly out of gift ideas, and a smart speaker is the best one you’ve got. Either way, now is probably the best time to buy one. Of course, the biggest consideration to make when thinking about which model to get is the assistant you prefer to use: Amazon’s Alexa or Google’s Assistant? This year’s best speaker deals also include some with displays and others that are purely speake