Technology news

Reports emerged today that the FTCis considering a fine against Facebookthat would be the largest ever from the agency. Even if it were 10 times the size of the largest, a $22.5 million bill sent to Google in 2012, the company would basically laugh it off. Facebook is made of money. But the FTC may make it provide something it has precious little of these days: accountability.
A Washington Post report cites sources inside the agency (currently on hiatus due to the shutdown) saying that regulator

If you’ve ever enthusiastically sent your spit off in the mail, you were probably anxious for whatever unexpected insights the current crop of DNA testing companies would send back. Did your ancestors hang out on the Iberian peninsula? What version of your particular family lore does the science support?
Most people who participate in mail-order DNA testing don’t think to question the science behind the results — it’s science after all. But because DNA testing companies l

They may be free, but they sure pay. Games with no upfront cost but a plethora of other ways to make money generated a mind-blowing $88 billion in 2018 according to SuperData’s year-end report — leaving traditional games (and indeed movies and TV) in the dust.
While it may not come as a surprise that F2P (as free to play is often abbreviated) is big business at the end of 2018, the Year of Fortnite, the sheer size of it can hardly fail to impress.
The total gaming market, as this rep

Tom Griffiths has founded four companies, two of which “weren’t much to write home about,” he jokes. The third captured the world’s attention: FanDuel, the fantasy sports company that was routinely in the press — not always for desirable reasons — from nearly the day it launched, to its near merger with rival DraftKings, to its ultimate sale last May to the European betting giant Paddy Power Betfair in a deal that reportedly saw FanDuel’s found

Ikea and Sonos released a teaser video today revealing that their collaborative line of Symfonisk smart speakers will launch this August, as spotted by Variety. The partnership, first announced in 2017, was created to find seamless ways to integrate Sonos products into Ikea furniture and lower the cost of entry into built-in home sound systems.
The collaboration focuses on bringing “music and sound” into the home, which covers playing from streaming services and potentially also the

Swedish audio company Teenage Engineering is expanding their popular Pocket Operator synth line with a new line of self-assembly modular units called the 16, the 170, and the 400. Meant to be a more affordable entry point into modular synthesis than most Eurorack modules — which can easily balloon into thousands of dollars— Teenage Engineering says their goal was to create a “poor man’s modular.”
The 400 is an analog modular synthesizer with what Teenage Engineerin

Federal Trade Commission officials have discussed imposing a record-setting fine on Facebook after a year of major data breaches and revelations of improper data sharing, according to the Washington Post. Facebook may have violated a 2012 agreement with the government to protect users’ data and make clear statements about their privacy.
If imposed, this would be the first major fine Facebook has faced in the US after it was revealed last spring that the personal data of over 87 million us

Bored of regular fireworks? ALE, a Japanese "space entertainment" company, is working on making artificial meteor showers an option. ALE has already managed to send its first satellite into orbit to conduct experiments ahead of their first attempt for a meteor show due in 2020. If the company succeeds, you might soon be able to buy shooting stars. Read more...More about Mashable Video, Meteor, Fireworks, Meteors, and Artificial

One SF startup wants you to get home from a day at work and polish off a bottle of wine by yourself.
Vinebox isn’t really trying to get you wasted though, these bottles are cute and tiny. The small startup is hoping that they can get consumers into the idea of buying premium quality wine-by-the-glass and they’ve convinced investors there’s something behind this concept as well.
The team has just closed a $5.9 million round of funding led by Harbinger Ventures.
Co-founders 

Ice chunks thud to the ground at 90 miles per hour and shatter. A branch snaps off a tree under its frozen weight. A bus hurtles down an ice-slicked road. These are some of the dangers that an ice storm can unleash, and they’re featured in The Weather Channel’s new mixed reality segment just in time for a winter storm to pummel the Midwest and Northeast.It’s the latest video in The Weather Channel’s terrifying campaign to communicate the dangers of natural hazards, befor

Salesforce put the finishing touches on a tower in San Francisco last year. In October, it announced Salesforce Tower in Atlanta. Today, it was Dublin’s turn. Everyone gets a tower.
Salesforcefirst opened an office in Dublin back in 2001, and has since expanded to 1,400 employees. Today’s announcement represents a significant commitment to expand even further, adding 1,500 new jobs over the next five years.
The new tower in Dublin is actually going to be a campus made up of

Sony’s venture capital arm has invested in what3words,the startup that has divided the entire world into 57 trillion 3-by-3 meter squares and assigned a three-word address to each one.
Financial details were not disclosed.
The startup’s novel addressing system isn’t the whole story. The ability to integrate what3words into voice assistants is what has piqued the interest and investment from Sony and others.
“what3words have solved the considerable problem of entering a pr

At the last real day of CES (before Kanye showed up and tried to make the vacant halls of Thursday a "thing"), Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey held a public discussion to clue us all in on his efforts to make Twitter better.
But hey! Forget the hate speech, Nazis, account-muting, and general directionlessness of Dorsey's social media devil child for a sec. What the people really wanted to know about were Jack's SHOES.What are those shoes @jack? #CES pic.twitter.com/53pc4nkHDD
— Rich Greenfield (@R

Mortal Kombat tops the very short list of video games that have cemented themselves as permanent staples of pop culture. Whether it's pro wrestlers, Wreck-It Ralph, Zayn Malik's Met Gala outfit, or Lil Wayne and Skrillex tracks, its influence far exceeds the confines of a fighting game.
You'd think after nearly three decades, it'd get old. But the hype for Mortal Kombat 11 is still just as fatal.
SEE ALSO: Bloody 'Mortal Kombat 11' gameplay trailer shows off brutality and fatalities
"We're all j

Copyright activists just scored a major victory in the ongoing fight over the European Union’s new copyright rules. An upcoming summit to advance the EU’s copyright directive has been canceled, as member states objected to the incoming rules as too restrictive to online creators.
The EU’s forthcoming copyright rules had drawn attention from activists for two measures, designated as Article 11 and Article 13, that would give publishers rights over snippets of news content share

The first 3-day weekend of the new year is finally here and you know what that means: MLK Day sales are coming in hot.
On top of MLK Day sales, many retailers are in the midst of their big winter blowout sales or their White Sales (January is known for its sales on bedding). But TBH, we don't even care what it's called — all we care about is the "sale" part.
Mattresses, bedding, bath items, 4K TVs, laptops, and winter coats and boots are the biggest themes we're seeing across the inte

Spotify is planning to release an in-car music player with voice controls later this year, anonymous sources told The Financial Times. Spotify has previously teased this type of product with pop-up screens in the Spotify app seen by some customers, as The Verge reported back in April, but today’s news further confirms its existence. The Times says the device will be priced around $100. Its rumored release comes as companies including Apple (with CarPlay), Google (Assistant and Android Aut

Look out Michael Scott, the search is on for Scranton, Pennsylvania's newest regional manager.
On Thursday, Twitter user Owen Taylor noticed quite the intriguing job listing on the career site Brad Traverse Jobs. 
Turns out, Democratic Senator Bob Casey's Scranton office is looking for a regional manager — something any fan of the NBC comedy The Office would surely appreciate.Senator Bob Casey's Scranton office is seeking a Regional Manager and I'm not making that up pic.twitter.com/0

Facebook’s seemingly never-ending quest to make itself appealing to younger, teenage smartphone owners has now resulted in an app called LOL. According to TechCrunch, LOL is a simple piece of software featuring a feed of memes and GIFs categorized by topics like “animals” and “pranks,” and Facebook is currently testing it with 100 high school users with the consent of their parents. It seems LOL’s design is reminiscent of Snapchat’s Discover tab, and it

Big week for Google wearable news — which, honestly, is not a phrase I expected to write in 2019. But a day after the company announced an agreement to purchase Fossil’s wearable technology for $40 million, Alphabet-owned research group Verily just scored FDA clearance for its electrocardiogram (ECG) technology.The clearance pertains specifically to the company’s Study Watch. The device, which was announced back in 2017, shouldn’t be confused with the company’s more

"Tell me somethin', girl. Are you happy in this modern world? Or do you need more? Is there somethin' else you're searchin' for?" 
Maybe you're searching for a brand new 4K TV. 
If you plan on just watching movies and TV shows all weekend long (we hear A Star Is Born is now streaming on VUDU), maybe you should sit back and relax in front of a brand new 4K smart TV. Did you know Bradley Cooper and Lady Gaga look so much better in 4K?
SEE ALSO: 8 of the best soundbars for your TV and hom

In a video uploaded to YouTube on Friday, Shitty Robots creator Simone Giertz elaborated on what she disclosed on Twitter last week: that her non-cancerous brain tumor, for which she had brain surgery last year, has grown enough that she now plans to undergo radiation treatment.
Giertz explained that her doctors decided to leave a piece of the tumor behind in a section of the brain where performing surgery was particularly risky. That's the piece that, over the past eight months, has grown.
"We

DJI, the world’s leading maker of consumer drones, said today that extensive corruption discovered within the company could lead to losses as great as $150 million in the 2018 financial year. The exact nature of the corruption is not stated, but it seems to involve dozens of people at the least.
The China Securities Journal, a state-operated finance-focused newspaper, got hold of an internal company report on a corruption investigation that said some 40 people had been investigated so far,

Valentine’s Day is on February 14th, and if you plan on buying gifts, it’s best to get started now rather than resorting to a last-minute, slapdash effort.
If you do nothing else, have a nice dinner together. But if you’re looking for a few gift ideas, we provided some ideas below, covering a range of categories from gaming, tech, music, and film to activities like cooking.
The Criterion Channel Charter SubscriptionThe only bright side to FilmStruck shutting down at the end of

Eisar Lipkovitz, a veteran Googleexecutive who most recently led the video and display advertising team there, is leaving the company to head up engineering efforts at Lyft .
As executive vice president of engineering, Lipkovitz will be leading Lyft’s engineering team, which now eclipses 1,000 people.
Lipkovitz’s hiring comes on the heels of massive growth at Lyft, specifically its engineering team. The ride-hailing company’s engineering team doubled in size in the last ye

There are just three short weeks until Silicon Valley’s startup community takes a night off to relax, connect and get down at the 2nd Annual TechCrunch Winter Party at Galvanize. It’s not just an opportunity to have a great time — although you will. It’s also the chance for promising early-stage startups to strut their stuff. We have a handful of demo tables available, but they won’t last long. Why not book a demo table today? You never know who might attend the par

How do you do, fellow kids? After FacebookWatch, Lasso and IGTV failed to become hits with teens, the company has been quietly developing another youthful video product. Multiple sources confirm that Facebook has spent months building LOL, a special feed of funny videos and GIF-like clips. It’s divided into categories like “For You,” “Animals,” “Fails,” “Pranks” and more with content pulled from News Feed posts by top meme Pages on Facebook.