Technology news

Looks like Amazon Music is coming to Android TV, as Android Police has spotted a listing for the TV version of the app appearing now in the Google Play Store. It’s not available just yet, but there is an option to pre-register for it.
Other music streaming services have been available on Android TV for some time. Spotify’s Android TV presence came way back in May 2016, and Tidal made the jump to Android TV back in December 2017. There are a few screenshots for the Amazon Music on th

As streamers have grown from being scrappy amateurs to professionals, the tools that facilitate their careers have undergone a similar evolution. While several of the tools are integrated into the streaming platforms themselves, successful streaming relies, to an almost astonishing degree, on third-party software. As Twitch, YouTube, and the like have risen to be entertainment powerhouses, the makers of this software have become more sophisticated to meet the needs of the streamers. One company

China’s government has spent the last few years pressuring automakers and citizens to adopt hybrid and electric vehicles to cut into the country’s pollution levels. But many of these so-called “new energy vehicles” have also been tracking the location of drivers, and a number of government officials and entities have had access to this data, according to a sweeping new report from The Associated Press.
More than 200 manufacturers (both national and foreign) transmit the

Christmas came early this Friday, when a sculpture of Gritty made out of cheese was unveiled.
The Philadelphia Flyers' mascot was crafted by expert food sculptures Jim Victor and Marie Pelton  using three 40-pound bricks cheddar cheese, according to Philly Voice. We assume it had an extra sharp flavor profile — it's what Gritty would want.
And, if you're feeling doubtful that any artist could ever truly capture Gritty's chaotic and charismatic essence, just take a look at this gloriou

The days of Google Hangouts for consumers may be coming to an end in 2020, according to a report from 9to5Google today. Hangouts has been suffering from an identity crisis since Google launched it as a replacement for Gchat in 2013, and it’s actually been losing features in recent years as the company stopped updating the app and took away SMS messaging. That change was part of Google’s new focus for Hangouts, which will stay safe for now as a workplace communication tool in the for

This holiday season, while everyone else is giving and receiving the year’s hottest new tech items, why not do something a little different?
Give the gift of old and absolutely out-of-date technology to the geek in your life this year! (We're not kidding.)
iPhones and iPads are more expensive than ever. The latest video game console bundles are already sold out. And the techie who already has all the newest gear is expecting you to give them that annual iTunes gift card. Change it up; surp

Bethesda has been widely lambasted for its latest game, open-world MMO Fallout 76 — both for releasing the game when it was nigh-unplayable, and for allegedly refusing to issue some gamers refunds. This tidal wave of censure begs the question: would the company still be having this problem if it’d released its game on Steam rather than its own platform? It’s all over but the crying If you’re even passingly familiar with gaming media and news, you’ve probably h

Music videos haven’t felt like a communal event since the heydays of MTV and TRL Live, but with the advent of live-streaming, the shared experience may be making a comeback. Today, Ariana Grande debuted the video for her relationship-themed single, “thank u, next,” and a lot of people got together on YouTube to watch it at the same time.
With services like Twitch, this phenomenon has become fairly standard when it comes to video games, commentary, and certain types of announce

By now, anybody who lives a social media life has probably heard that Laura Loomer — the 25-year-old far-right provocateur and self-styled Patreon-supported “investigative journalist” — handcuffed herself to Twitter’s headquarters in New York City on Thursday evening, and, in her words, “threw away the key.”
She was protesting Twitter, she said, because she believed the permanent ban she earned from the service for hate speech was unfair. She wanted her

E Ink — a name synonymous with e-reader screens — just debuted a new writing display technology called JustWrite. The tech offers the company’s familiar monochrome aesthetic — albeit in negative this time, with white on black.The key here, as with most of E Ink’s technology, is minimal power consumption and low cost, the latter of which it was able to accomplish by dumping the TFT (thin-film-transistor LCD). Instead, it’s a thin roll that could be used to pape

Ariana Grande's "thank u, next" already cemented itself as a 2018 banger, and the official video is a party of its own. Full of classic teen movie tropes and references to Mean Girls, Bring It On, Legally Blonde, and more.
SEE ALSO: Ariana Grande is cool with all her exes in new song 'thank u, next'
The movie references are fun on their own, all teased by Grande on social media leading up to the video's release, but the cameos make "thank u, next." 
From Mean Girls' original Aaron Samuels (

Facebook’s video-on-demand service Facebook Watch is getting a trio of familiar classics: Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Angel, and Firefly. The social network is teaming up with 20th Century Fox to bring every episode of the shows to Facebook starting today.The shows aren’t exclusive to Facebook — you can purchase episodes from a variety of places, and the episodes can be streamed on Hulu — but earlier this week, Facebook rolled out its Watch Party feature to everyone, so gr

Facebookhasn’t had a hit show yet for its long-form video hub Watch, so it’s got a new plan: digging up some deceased cult favorites from television. First up, Facebook is making all episodes of Joss Whedon’s Buffy The Vampire Slayer, Angel, and Firefly free on Facebook Watch. There’ll be simultaneous viewing Watch Parties where fans can live-comment together for Buffy at 3 pm PT today, Angel tomorrow at 12 pm PT and Firefly on Sunday at 12 pm PT. Facebook

A team at NYU Langone Health successfully transplanted their second face, and gave one man his life back. Twenty-six-year-old Cameron Underwood suffered a self-inflicted gunshot, resulting in massive damage to his face. Fortunately, after about 18 months, Underwood was matched with a donor for a face transplant, and today he is more positive than ever that his life can go back to how it was.  Read more...More about Mashable Video, Face Transplant, Health Insurance, Nyu, and Medical Coverage

I don't love using the term "underrated." (Generally speaking, I think we rate things just fine.) But when it comes to Don't Trust the B in Apartment 23, I'm happy to make an exception. This show is indeed an underrated treasure, one that you need to watch ASAP.
Lasting only two short seasons, Don't Trust the B never really stood the chance it deserved. Saddled with an unfortunate title and an ill-fitting home network, the surrealist ABC Family comedy started with a bang that quickly fizzled int

Black Friday broke records in terms of sales made from mobile devices, according to reports last week from Adobe. This week, PayPal said it saw a similar trend during the Thanksgiving to Cyber Monday shopping event. PayPal saw a record-breaking $1 billion+ in mobile payment volume for the first time ever on Black Friday — a milestone it hit again on Cyber Monday.
Mobile payment volume on Black Friday was up 42 percent over Black Friday 2017, the company said, and it even outpaced the

Meet Cimon. The 3D-printed floating robot head was developed by Airbus for the German Space Agency. He’s been a crew member of the International Space Station since June, though as Gizmodo notes, this is the first time we’re seeing him in action.Really the floating, Watson-powered robot face is like an extremely expensive Amazon Echo designed to study human-machine interactions in space. This video highlights an early interaction between Cimon and European Space Agency astronaut Alex

Those of us who grew up online each have our internet albatross. For some, it’s goatse. For others, it’s those viral pre-YouTube jumpscare videos with a screaming face that flashes across the screen for a split second. Mine, regretfully, was Salad Fingers, the animated web series created by David Firth in 2004, about a disgusting, childlike, inexplicably vibrating zombie creature with piquerism and a penchant for rusty spoons. Thus with even more regret I must relay the news that th

Some Google Maps users are making a confusing and troubling discovery when opening the app.
In some cases, users reported that they're seeing the swastika symbol on some locations, in particular hotels, when opening up Google Maps, according to tweets.
SEE ALSO: If you're only using free Mac apps, you're not living your best life
Twitter user @irishkokolily asked the Google Maps Twitter account, “can you tell me why the hotels in Dublin on my Google maps has swastika signs for them?”

Fallout is a franchise defined by its lawlessness: in the wasteland, nothing can stop denizens from succumbing to their worst tendencies. Fallout 76 leans into the chaos by allowing fans to interact with one another, but recently, one group of players took things too far.
Fallout 76 supports up to 24 players per server, and these participants can talk, trade, and group-up with one another. While the game does allow player-versus-player combat, the feature is opt-in. However, there’s nothi

After seven years of sharing essays, art, advice, and writing for (and often by) teenagers, the online magazine Rookie Mag is shutting down. Launched by fashion blogger Tavi Gevinson in 2011 — when she was only 15 years old — Rookie attracted a million views in six days and went on to become an intimate, authentic, and feminist lens for its primarily young female audience to look at and speak to the world.In a six-page editor’s letter that will be the last post on the site, Ge

Over two dozen current and former black Tesla employees are describing racial discrimination in a New York Times investigation today that looks into the company’s Fremont factory.
The complaints range from being barred from promotions, forced to scrub the factory floors, and allege that supervisors have directed racial slurs at employees. The allegations come from a variety of interviews, internal communications, and legal statements acquired by The New York Times. Tesla disagrees that th

Congress just reached an agreement on proposed legislation that could make hemp legal to grow in the United States for the first time in nearly a century. Hemp may be derived from the same plant as marijuana, but it doesn’t make anyone high and is commonly used in food, fuel, and bracelets. The new legislation officially acknowledges the difference between the two.
Technically speaking, hemp is a variety of the cannabis plant that contains less than 0.3 percent tetrahydrocannabinol (THC),

There are so many streaming options available these days, and so many conflicting recommendations, that it’s hard to see through all the crap you could be watching. Each Friday, The Verge’s Cut the Crap column simplifies the choice by sorting through the overwhelming multitude of movies and TV shows on subscription services and recommending a single perfect thing to watch this weekend.
What to watch
“Sandkings,” the two-part premiere episode of Showtime’s mid-1990s