Technology news

The Abominable Snowman of Apple products — AirPower — is resurfacing. But we'll believe that the technological monster myth is real when we see it.
SEE ALSO: Seriously, where the heck is Apple's AirPower charger?
The Hong Kong website ChargerLAB reported, via a "credible source," that AirPower wireless charging mats are already in production. Separately, an app developer mentioned he had heard that Apple overcame its ongoing production problems with AirPower. Taken together, these de

R. Kelly's recently revived legal troubles, which stem from decades of sexual misconduct allegations, are now impacting his ability to work. Case in point: a planned "spring break" concert in Springfield, Ill. will not be allowed to happen.
A permit request for the Spring Break Jam concert, which was set to happen in April with Kelly as the "host," has been denied, according to a report from the Chicago Tribune. The organizers already announced the event, but their application was still under re

It's no secret that premium smartphones are selling for fatter and fatter stacks of cash these days. Now, the government is saying that's a problem — but not for the reason you might think.
The Federal Trade Commission brought an antitrust suit against chip-maker Qualcomm in 2017, and it's just now playing out in court. Per CNET, the suit alleges that Qualcomm took advantage of a non-competitive marketplace to overcharge Apple and other smartphone makers for use of its chips, technology, a

Trump has made a lot of things buzzworthy, but perhaps none more than “fake news.” Everyone has strong opinions about who is at fault for spreading lies in the press. It’s “the media’s” fault. It’s Trump’s fault. Before Trump, it was the National Enquirer’s fault. It’s Facebook’s fault. You name a source, and they’ve probably been blamed. And while all of those entities have played their part in this epidemic, I’m goi

For most employable humans on this planet, saying racist things in public would be grounds for immediate termination with no pay. Megyn Kelly isn't most people.
Almost three months and $69 million later, the disgraced TV host who got suspended for her thoughtless on-air remarks about blackface in late 2018, is no longer an employee of NBC. The dollar amount represents the total Kelly stood to earn from her three-year contract, had she stuck around for all of it.
SEE ALSO: Prada apologizes for 'P

Jason Rowley Contributor Jason Rowley is a venture capital and technology reporter for Crunchbase News.More posts by this contributorSoftBank’s Vision Fund inches closer to $100B The top 10 cities for $100M VC rounds in 2018 so far
For the global VC industry, 2018 was a supergiant year. Crunchbase projects that 2018 deal and dollar volume surpassed even the high-water mark left by the dot-com deluge and the drought that followed.
As covered in Crunchbase News’s global

The smart home market is still up for grabs. Unlike PCs or phones, which, for the most part, are dominated by a few well-known names, smart home gadgets can come from wherever and whatever brand. As long as they perform functions you can’t get from the big names, people will continue to flock to them.
You can stick with mainstream options like Philips Hue lights or a Nest thermostat, and there’s nothing wrong with that. But the fun thing about building a smart home is that after cho

Mike Volpi ContributorShare on Twitter Mike Volpi is a general partner at Index Ventures. Before co-founding the firm's San Francisco office with Danny Rimer, Volpi served as the chief strategy officer at Cisco Systems.
It was just 5 years ago that there was an ample dose of skepticism from investors about the viability of open source as a business model. The common thesis was that Redhat was a snowflake and that no other open source company would be significant in the software u

Apple’s long-delayed AirPower wireless charging mat might finally be in production, if rumors are to believed. Word comes via a tweet from ChargerLAB (via MacRumors), which says that it’s learned from a “credible source” that Apple has begun manufacturing the long-delayed wireless charging mat.If true, it could mean that the long-overdue product could finally reach the hands of consumers before too much longer. Apple announced in September 2017, that it was introducing w

CES offers a glimpse of what’s to come in technology, but the futuristic showcase in Las Vegas also has the positive side effect of knocking down prices on a few products that are currently available. And with the Super Bowl on the horizon, expect to see more deals in the realm of home entertainment soon. We’ve looked closely to find a few that are worth checking out.
Home theaterPhoto by Vjeran Pavic / The Verge
The Polk Command soundbar with wireless subwoofer (Alexa built in) is

We're fast approaching the moment when expensive hardware will no longer be the deciding factor in which video games you can and can't play. And it looks like Verizon wants to be one of the first contenders aiming to disrupt an entrenched market.
Leaked emails and images indicate that the company has reached the alpha testing stage for a new service called Verizon Gaming. The Netflix-style interface would allow users to select the tile for the game they want and start playing, based on what we'v

In a year many deemed lackluster, the most interesting new tech of CES 2019 could not be found in a single one of the more than 4,000 exhibitor booths that populate the convention's 2.7 million square feet of show floor. 
To find it, I actually had to go to a small, unofficial off-site meeting room where the women of Lora DiCarlo, a sex tech company, were huddled together. 
SEE ALSO: The best tech of CES 2019
The device they'd created, Osé, solves a major problem. For a long tim

Just as on-demand electric scooters are trying to pick up speed in Europe, one of the scooter market’s most ambitious startups has halted operations in one country after its e-scooters started halting mid-ride, throwing off and injuring passengers.
Lime, the Uber-backed bike and scooter rental company that is reportedly raising money at between a $2 billion and $3 billion valuation, has pulled its full fleet of scooters in Switzerland, in the cities of Basel and Zurich, for safety checks a

Uber has plans to eliminate car ownership, take over the public transportation systems, and even fly you across cities. Say bye to being stuck in traffic? Uber says this dream can become reality in just few years’ time, as it rolls out plans to become “Amazon of transportation.” While last few years have been tough for Uber – it’s been plagued by toxic company culture and accused of avoiding regulations and ‘gaming’ the system — the new CEO is mak

Amazon’s Alexa has become the household name when it comes to smart assistants, but its ongoing fight with Google Assistant is getting more difficult than expected. Products can support both Alexa and the Google Assistant, and since smart home companies want to sell products to as many customers as possible, Alexa has been getting fewer and fewer exclusive victories.
Google used its massive presence at CES this week to send a message that it has bigger plans for the Assistant, too. Even a

Vine left a gaping wound in the fabric of our society when it was finally killed two years ago. But on the plus side, TikTok is filling the void that Vine left behind. Sort of. 
TikTok, formerly known as Musical.ly, was once full of cringey lip syncing clips and painfully awkward dance routines. But in the past few months, TikTok users have been leaning to more creative short sketches, similar to the Vine skits that captured our hearts. 
SEE ALSO: Snapchat takes on TikTok with lip sync

Welcome to Small Humans, an ongoing series at Mashable that looks at how to take care of – and deal with – the kids in your life. Because Dr. Spock is nice and all, but it’s 2018 and we have the entire internet to contend with.Internet marketed direct-to-consumer subscription services are the new black – and bonus points if they’re aimed at a person with children. Offering expecting and new parents anything and everything from smart bassinets to leather playmats, th

The government shutdown entered its 21st day on Friday, upping concerns of potentially long-lasting impacts on the U.S. stock market. Private market investors around the country applauded when Uber finally filed documents with the SEC to go public. Others were giddy to hear Lyft, Pinterest, Postmates and Slack (via a direct listing, according to the latest reports) were likely to IPO in 2019, too.
Unfortunately, floats that seemed imminent may not actually surface until the second

You are obsessed with Black Mirror: Bandersnatch. If it were a 1980s cassette tape, you would have worn this interactive story down by playing it over and over, trying to guide the main character Stefan to all five endings. Nothing could dissuade you — not the seemingly random limits on which devices can play it, nor the $25 million trademark lawsuit from the makers of Choose Your Own Adventure (CYOA) books. 
But once you've reached all endings, what then? You'd like to keep this inte

Personalization has come a long way since Amazon started leveraging personalized book recommendations in 1999. Half of companies worldwide have identified it as a priority investment, and globally 92 percent of marketers believe there’s value in 1-to-1 marketing technology. If you’re part of this majority but haven’t figured out how to advance your personalization efforts, you’re not alone. Personalization has gained popularity in recent years, but not all marketers feel

In terms of active users, virtual reality is predicted to be as big as Netflix by 2022. That makes it all the more surprising that Apple — typically a trailblazer when it comes to digital imaging — has yet to add 360-video capabilities to its iPhones. For all of the features it's packed into the iPhone XR and XS, it couldn't squeeze in a spherical mode? Tsk tsk. 
Fortunately, the Mashable Shop is here to pick up where Tim Cook left off. To quote Beyoncé Giselle Knowles-Ca

Whether you're the head honcho of your own business or a team member within a large corporation, one thing's for sure: If you're not constantly improving your expertise and qualifications, you can't grow professionally. Your career is sort of like a great white shark in that way — if it stops moving, it dies. 
For this reason, it's important to continually explore skill-refining training tools like, say, RedVector's top-tier online programs. As it so happens, the continuing education

Data breaches, widespread malware attacks, and microtargeted personalized advertising were lowlights of digital life in 2018. As technologies change, so does the advice security experts give for how to best stay safe. As 2019 begins, I’ve pulled together a short list of suggestions for keeping your digital life secure and free of manipulative disinformation. 1. Set your boundaries and stick to them As part of my research, I’ve recently been speaking with a number of sex workers in E

This week, the Las Vegas Convention Center was packed with many of the year’s biggest new devices. But over the last several years, The Sands has become the place where the real magic happens. The segment of the show known as Eureka Park is where the startups and accelerators congregate, often times showing off products that are still years away.
A quick walk around the floor (insofar as someone can walk quickly with that much humanity slowly shuffling through the halls) sheds a lot of lig

Last October, when we first got our hands on the new iPad Pro, we saw a frustration coming a mile away: though this tablet is supposedly built for pros, you can’t do something as simple as import photos directly into Adobe’s Lightroom CC.That was still true when Nilay reviewed the tablet in November, but Apple said a workaround was coming — a Siri Shortcut that would automatically import photos from the camera roll into Lightroom, then delete them from the camera roll.
Now, tw

Proctor & Gamble debuted its newest tool in the fight against aging. At CES this week, the company introduced the world to “Opté,” a handheld device that prints anti-aging product on top of your skin, acting as a real-world Photoshop, essentially. Opté covers up hyperpigmentation, or age spots, by gliding a device the size of an electric shaver over the skin‘s surface. Using blue LED lights, the device maximizes contrasts in melanin before using onboard camer

I had to fight a couple of coworkers for this thing. It’s a strange thing to fight over, I realize, but we are strange people with a strange job. And more importantly, I won. I’m plugged into the PowerPort Atom as I write this. It’s keeping my 13-inch MacBook Pro alive via the plane power outlet tightly squeezed behind my legs.I travel a lot, and I try to travel light. Determining what goes into and what stays out of my carryon feels a bit like stocking delivery rockets for the

SpaceX will lay off 10 percent of its workforce, immediately following its first successful rocket launch of the year for satellite operator Iridium. The news, first reported by the Los Angeles Times and confirmed by SpaceX, suggests the company is under some financial pressure as it attempts to get two ambitious projects off the ground.
More than 6,000 people work at SpaceX, according to the company’s website. It’s not clear which SpaceX divisions may have been affected. The compan

SpaceXplans to lay off approximately 10 percent of its workforce in order to manage its costs, the company confirmed to TechCrunch today. First reported by Ars Technica’s Eric Berger, the news comes as the company embarks on an ambitious plan to develop and test an interplanetary spacecraft while simultaneously performing frequent orbital launches.
In a statement provided to TechCrunch, SpaceX explained that the layoffs are in pursuit of becoming a “leaner company” and that the

Cory Doctorow doesn’t like censorship. He especially doesn’t like his own work being censored.
Anyone who knows Doctorow knows his popular tech and culture blog, Boing Boing, and anyone who reads Boing Boing knows Doctorow and his cohort of bloggers. The part-blogger, part special advisor at the online rights group Electronic Frontier Foundation has written for years on topics of technology, hacking, security research, online digital rights and censorship and its intersection with fr

The Morph is a fun little computer peripheral. The small trackpad uses a series of silicone covers to recreate different interfaces, from a QWERTY keyboard to a drum pad. Ultimately, however, it’s the tech that drives the product — rather than the product itself — that may prove the most useful.Sensel was on-hand at CES this week, in a much larger booth than the year prior. The Morph took up a chunk of the area, including a musician using different pads to play songs live. But

A team of researchers from Tel-Aviv University developed a neural network capable of reading a recipe and generating an image of what the finished, cooked product would look like. As if DeepFakes weren’t bad enough, now we can’t be sure the delicious food we see online is real. The Tel-Aviv team, consisting of researchers Ori Bar El, Ori Licht, and Netanel Yosephian created their AI using a modified version of a generative adversarial network (GAN) called StackGAN V2 and 52K image/r