Technology news

Jia Yueting, the CEO and a co-founder of troubled EV startup Faraday Future, has a notorious history with money. While his rise to fame and fortune in China was built partly around his vision — he started a streaming company in 2004 called LeTV, well before Netflix shifted away from DVDs — it was also built on financial debt. For years, he followed a relatively simple formula. He found success with LeTV, borrowed against that success to try new things under the umbrella of “Le

The federal government is now looking into faked comments posted to the FCC’s website during last year’s public comment period on the agency’s plans to roll back net neutrality internet protections. According to Buzzfeed News, the FBI has launched an investigation to determine if any laws were broken.In May 2017, the FCC began accepting comments from the general public regarding its plans, pulling in more than 2.6 million comments, spurred on by television personalities like J

Governments and private companies are deploying AI systems at a rapid pace, but the public lacks the tools to hold these systems accountable when they fail. That’s one of the major conclusions in a new report issued by AI Now, a research group home to employees from tech companies like Microsoft and Google and affiliated with New York University.The report examines the social challenges of AI and algorithmic systems, homing in on what researchers call “the accountability gap”

As the entertainment year winds down, Black Mirror fans are watching Netflix suspiciously, hoping for announcements about the fifth season of the technological-terrors show. Back in October, a Bloomberg report claimed that new episodes would arrive in 2018, including an interactive choose-your-own-adventure episode. (Reached for response to the unsourced report, Netflix immediately sent back a cheeky choose-your-own-press-statement email.) And a few days ago, a hastily deleted tweet appeared to

When it comes to anime, Netflix has been on a tear recently. In November, the streaming service announced that it was creating a live-action version of Cowboy Bebop, new shows set in the worlds of Pacific Rim and Altered Carbon, and that it was bringing Neon Genesis Evangelion to subscribers. Now, another classic is coming: Ghost in the Shell.
As spotted by io9, Netflix announced that a new Ghost in the Shell anime is coming — Ghost in the Shell: SAC_2045 which will be directed by Shinji

The internet is a community, but can it be a nation-state? It’s a question that I have been pondering on and off this year, what with the rise of digital nomads and the deeply libertarian ethos baked into parts of the blockchain community. It’s clearly on a lot of other people’s minds as well: when we interviewed Matt Howard of Norwest on Equity a few weeks back, he noted (unprompted) that Uber is one of the few companies that could reach “nation-state” status when

In the near future of Ninth Step Station, Tokyo experiences a massive disaster that leaves it in shambles, desperate for international aid. The country is divided up by the world’s major powers, each patrolling their respective sector borders with drones and peacekeepers. In this environment, US Navy Lieutenant Emma Hiagashi and a local police officer named Miyako Koreda are partnered up to work on a string of murders across the city.
Their adventures will be told in an 11-part series fro

Shaking from the large earthquake that shuddered through Anchorage, Alaska last week was strong enough to turn smooth asphalt roads into broken, jagged depressions of rubble. But within just a few days, crews managed to repair the worst of the damage, unsnarling traffic in Alaska’s largest city.Anchorage has a population of nearly 300,000 people spread across more than 1,900 square miles — an area larger than the state of Rhode Island. That space is threaded by roads, asphalt lifeli

Kevin Hart is a popular comedian and actor who, until Friday morning, was scheduled to be the host of the 2019 Academy Awards. And he still would be the host of the 2019 Academy Awards, had he not violated one of the sacrosanct rules of life online: never tweet.
Shortly after he was named host, BuzzFeed’s Michael Blackmon reviewed some of the tweets that Hart was frantically deleting:“Yo if my son comes home & try’s 2 play with my daughters doll house I’m going 2 bre

Less than a decade ago, I left a high-paying tech job in New York City to found my own SEO-optimization company. It was a calculated risk — I had a family to support but did not pursue investors or venture capital. Instead, I focused on organically building a consulting company, and using it to later incubate my software company. Since I left my job in November 2011, I have personally sold around $3 million of business to date (without an enterprise sales background). This is more than tw

An implant inserted near the pelvis to deliver “on-demand” vibrations is in development by American biohacker Rich Lee. Designed for men, the Lovetron9000 device will be inserted beneath the skin of the pelvis to “enhance the shared experience of lovemaking, emanating a passionate vibration that connects you to your partner,” Lee says. Lee from St. George, Utah, has spent $15,000 developing the toy – although is yet to sell one or use it himself. “W

Coinbaseis the most conservative exchange in cryptoland, largely because it operates in the U.S. under the watchful eye of the SEC. The $8 billion-valued company trades fewer than ten cryptocurrencies to consumers but on Friday announced it announced a major expansion that could see it list up to 30 new tokens.
The company said it is considering support Ripple’s XRP, EOS — the Ethereum challenger that held a year-long ICO that raised $4 billion — Stellar, a creation f

For those that bought Bitcoin in 2009, or even in 2011, I can only hope you’ve already sold it. For those that bought Bitcoin in 2017, well… sorry? Coinbase, one of the largest places to buy cryptocurrency online, seems to want you to revel in the Bitcoin‘s failures. For unknown reasons, the company still proudly displays a chart (which we first noticed last year, during the cryptocurrency boom) that shows the dollar value of Bitcoin if you’d bought $100 worth in 2013.

Two days after Lyft submitted paperwork to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission for an early 2019 initial public offering, Uber has done the same, per The Wall Street Journal.
The company filed confidentially for an IPO on Friday, marking the beginning of a race for the two ride-hailing giants to the stock markets.
Uber’s most recent private market valuation was a whopping $72 billion, though the nearly 10-year-old business reportedly expects Wall Street to value it at as much

Slack, the workplace messaging company, has hired investment bank Goldman Sachs to lead its IPO next year, according to a Reuters report. Reuters’ sources say the company is hoping to nab a valuation of “well over $10 billion.”
The WSJ reported back in September that Slack was “actively preparing” for an IPO in the first half of next year, with an eye toward going public as early as the first quarter. It said, too, that the company thought it could achieve a valuati

Grab your popcorn. Refill your tea. Individual-1 is getting meme'd. 
Special Counsel Robert Mueller and federal prosecutors from the Southern District of New York filed separate memos giving their sentencing recommendations for Trump's former lawyer Michael Cohen. Manhattan prosecutors suggested "substantial" prison time of between roughly four and five years, while Mueller noted Cohen has been helpful to his investigation even though his crime was "serious." 
Cohen pleaded guilty to t

Sure, Apple may have announced three new iPhones, a new MacBook Air, and the new iPad Pro this year, but the most important product is the company’s Apple Watch Series 4. It was just last night that Apple activated the Watch’s electrocardiogram (ECG) feature, and it appears to already be saving lives. Redditor u/edentel posted his experience today after receiving an alert on his Apple watch indicating he may have atrial fibrillation – afib for short – and decid

Qualcomm’s struggling data center business was hit another massive blow as the company laid off hundreds. The news, first revealed by the Information, has since been confirmed by TechCrunch.
The chipmaker laid off 269 employees in all, including 144 in Raleigh, North Carolina, where its data center business is located, and an additional 125 in San Diego, the company’s hometown. This is the latest in a number of cost-cutting moves made by the company this year. In April, it slashed no