Technology news

Lyft's bikeshare business is having a rough Sunday.
Almost identical blog posts from Citi Bike, Ford GoBike, and Capital Bikeshare — all of which are Lyft-owned businesses — confirm that their "pedal-assist" electric bikes have been temporarily taken out of service. That means customers in New York, San Francisco, and Washington, D.C. will have to make do with pedal bikes for now.
SEE ALSO: Scooters took over SXSW and that's only the beginning
The issue stems from some kind of issue

Is there a corner of culture untouched by Game of Thrones? Absolutely not.
In advance of Sunday's Season 8 premiere, museums around the world have been getting in on the Thrones fandom, in the best way they know how: by being extremely helpful and informative! 
In Game of Thrones, one of the few ways to kill a White Walker or wight is with a tool made of Dragonglass — or, as Samwell Tarly informed us all in Season 2, "the Maesters call it obsidian."
SEE ALSO: Everything to remember ab

If you’re a Game of Thrones fan and a Dish or Sling TV customer, you’re going to need to subscribe to HBO Now if you want to watch the April 14 premiere of the hit TV show’s final season.
Since Nov. 2018, Dish and HBO have been involved in a dispute which has left the premium TV network blacked out for Dish subscribers. Sling TV, Dish’s streaming platform, has been affected by the dispute as well.
As a result, subscribers to either Dish service have been unable to subscri

You've waited long enough, so here it is: Big Little Lies will return for a second season on June 9.
HBO confirmed the highly anticipated premiere date on Sunday with a minute-long teaser giving a glimpse at the Meryl Streep-enhanced second season. There's not a lot of info revealed here — unsurprisingly — but a whole bunch of fresh questions are raised.
Rest easy, HBO fans. There will be life after Game of Thrones. If you haven't caught Big Little Lies excellent first season, there'

Look out, Spotify. There may soon be a new free music streaming service, courtesy of Amazon.
According to Billboard, ecommerce giant Amazon is currently in talks with major music labels to provide a free, ad-supported music streaming service. The service would offer a limited catalog of tunes and would be made available through Amazon’s voice assistant, Alexa, on the company’s Echo devices.
Sources say Amazon could unveil the free music streaming service before the end of April. Spot

Oh, hello there! Looking to get doused in a bath of gimmicky nostalgia that somehow still rocks? Have we got the content for you!
During Weezer's Saturday night Coachella performance, the band covered TLC's "No Scrubs" and Tears for Fears' "Everybody Wants to Rule the World," and the band brought out some of the original artists behind those hits. 
SEE ALSO: Weezer finally covers Toto's 'Africa,' bringing closure to teen fan
The '90s/early 2000s nerdrock band, now experiencing a covers-fuel

The trailer may not have dropped, but those lucky fans who saw footage from The Mandalorian can attest that this already looks like the adult live-action Star Wars TV series of your dreams. 
The footage, locked down by Disney and shown only to attendees of The Mandalorian panel at Star Wars Celebration in Chicago, opened with Pedro Pascal as the title character in Boba Fett-style armor — known only as the Mandalorian — walking into a Cantina. But for the dilating door, the scene

It's hard to even fathom right now, at a moment when it feels like Game of Thrones is the biggest thing on the planet. But when the show premiered on HBO back in 2011, the response was less than enthusiastic.
There's a reason for that, of course. The show's original pilot, which never actually aired, was deemed a mess and largely re-filmed before the Season 1 premiere. That unaired pilot also featured several cast differences, including Tamzin Merchant in place of Emilia Clarke in the role of Da

As most people already know, there’s only one way to watch the final season of Game of Thrones live, and it involves getting some form of HBO subscription. Season 8, which will close out the series, begins airing on Sunday, April 14th, at 9PM ET. The eighth season will consist of six episodes, which will air on Sundays at 9PM ET. The series will wrap on May 19th.
If you’re a little late to the Game of Thrones party, and you’re panicking as you try to remember where the story p

Finally stopped using Internet Explorer? Good! But, now it’s time to completely delete it from your computer, too.
Security researcher John Page has discovered a new security flaw that allows hackers to steal Windows users’ data thanks to Internet Explorer. The craziest part: Windows users don’t ever even have to open the now-obsolete web browser for malicious actors to use the exploit. It just needs to exist on their computer.
“Internet Explorer is vulnerable to XML Exte

It can be difficult to find time to finish a video game, especially if you only have a few hours a week to play. In our biweekly column Short Play we suggest video games that can be started and finished in a weekend.
The World Next Door is a great game that I almost wish didn’t meet the short runtime required for this column. It combines elements of action role-playing games with match-3 puzzle gameplay, somewhat reminiscent of the RPG series Puzzle Quest. Its story has hints of Persona a

Has there ever really been a gay doll? 
Well, yes and no. In 1977, "Gay Bob," marketed as the world's first gay doll, was sold through mail-order ads in gay magazines. And I'm sure that Mattel still thinks about the "Earring Magic Ken" fiasco of 1993, and his "necklace." 
But there's nothing inherently gay about dolls themselves – they're toys, pieces of plastic after all. In the same vein, there's nothing inherently gay about doll collecting as a hobby, as a passion, as an art f

Facebook went down Sunday morning, in an outage that has affected all of the company’s social media platforms. Instagram, WhatsApp, and Messenger are all experiencing similar outage issues.
Users across the globe have reported difficulties using Facebook and Instagram. Issues on the social media sites range from users’ inability to log in to newsfeeds being unable to refresh. The outages are also preventing WhatsApp and Messenger messages from being sent.
SEE ALSO: Facebook investors

Being a professional actor is tough stuff. Not only are you stepping into a wide variety of roles and personas, you're doing it while also fighting to get whatever parts you can.
Saturday Night Live guest host Emma Stone brought her Serious Actor game to a sketch about a porno shoot. She shows up ready to work. Who is Deirdre? What drives her? What is the backstory leading her to the moment where she discovers her husband engaging in sexual acts with their godson? Most importantly: how the hell

Sunday nights are an exciting time on HBO, and not only because Game of Thrones is returning. 
Barry, HBO's Emmy-winning comedy and one of Mashable's top new shows of 2018, may be only a few episodes into its second season — but fans already have burning questions about the future of Gene Cousineau's acting class, the murder of Detective Janice Moss, and the inner workings of the Los Angeles mob scene. 
Anthony Carrigan, the actor behind series favorite NoHo Hank, spoke with Mash

On the latest Saturday Night Live, BTS brought something that few other performers on the show can manage: intense fandom.
The K-pop boy band superstars showed American audiences just how powerful the ARMY — that's what their fanbase is called — really is. The energy in the live studio audience is palpable in both YouTube clips of their performances — of "Mic Drop" and the new song, "Boy With Luv" — with the usual polite clapping replaced by shrieking cheers.
Watching the

What if Julian Assange, Lori Loughlin, and Michael Avenatti — all of whom are currently in a wee bit of legal jeopardy at the moment — ended up sharing a prison cell? What would they talk about? Would they compete for who did crimes the best?
That's the scenario the Saturday Night Live writers dreamed up for the latest episode's cold open sketch. There's even a special appearance by Michael Keaton, playing Assange, and a gleeful recreation of his "Let's get nuts!" line from Tim Burto

Did you know a gram of dust contains as many as 1000 dust mites, that live off shed skin and can multiply quickly in warm, humid places and can live up to 80 days. Dust mites commonly found in mattresses, pillows, and carpets. So cleaning your house often is important, especially for people that suffer from dust allergies.
Do you suffer from dust allergies? You are in luck, as you can get the Dyson Small Ball upright vacuum cleaner for $199.99 (listed at $399.99), and to add an extra layer of pr

Amazon discounts its Echo lineup every so often, and now is one of those times it might be worth taking a look. Prime Day 2019 in mid-July will likely bring better discounts, but if you’re in the market for a smart speaker right now, they’re the best prices you’re likely to find.
Until 12AM ET on April 22nd, you can get around 20 percent off (and in some cases, more) on a few products, like the inexpensive Echo Input that brings Alexa voice commands to speakers that aren&rsquo

With Game of Thrones being the cultural juggernaut that it is, it's hard for #brands to not want to join the partyThrones' nine years on the air have yielded all kinds of weird partnerships, so here are some of our favorites, new and old. Some are good and some are useless, but such is the game of brands.
SEE ALSO: 'Game of Thrones' star Maisie Williams well and truly got us with this April Fools' prank
10. JewelryGiven the success of their stunning Harry Potter line, Alex and Ani's Thrones prod

Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp were all experiencing issues this morning for users worldwide. Facebook and Instagram were both inaccessible, with news feeds refusing to refresh and the main Facebook.com domain unavailable for more than two hours. WhatsApp messages were also unable to be sent or received, and users of Facebook’s main services (Facebook owns Instagram and WhatsApp) headed to Twitter to share that they were having issues. Messenger, Facebook’s chat service, was also

Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp are all experiencing issues this morning for users worldwide. Facebook and Instagram are both inaccessible, with news feeds refusing to refresh and the main Facebook.com domain unavailable. WhatsApp messages aren’t being sent or received, and users of Facebook’s main services (Facebook owns Instagram and WhatsApp) have headed to Twitter to share that they’re having issues. Messenger, Facebook’s chat service, is also down.
The outages app

Editor's note: Mashable and PCMag are both owned by Ziff Davis.
Everyone has some sort of special talent. It may involve having flexible toes or being weirdly good at cartoon character impressions, but hey — it's your thing.
But it would be sweet to have a skill that you can capitalize on, whether it's for a full-time job, that side hustle coin, or simply ramping up your résumé. And that's when you turn to Udemy.
If spring has you wanting to learn something new, PCMag fe

The jury is still out on whether Mark Zuckerberg will make good on his promise of elevating his commitment to protecting Facebook users' privacy, but we're fairly certain that the tech mogul knows a thing or two about safeguarding his own privacy.
A couple of years ago, the wealthiest millennial in the world inadvertently let slip that he performs a DIY trick to prevent hackers from spying on his computer: He covers his webcam and microphone with tape.
Thanks to Zuck, what was once something tha

It took TWO YEARS to finally arrive at the final season of Game of Thrones. And now it's here.
You know what you don't have to wait for? A sale on a 12-month subscription to PlayStation Plus, which you can get for over 25% off when you use the code PSPSAVE.
To put things into perspective, a month's subscription to the service costs $9.99. Now when you take advantage of this limited-time only sale, you're getting a full year subscription for the price of four months. If you break it down further,

If you haven't noticed already, millennials really like talking about housing: Grouching about rental prices, musing about where to move next, and researching how to save for a downpayment on a house.
Real estate has become an American past time.
A lot of them are in the game of flipping houses, too. The market's been hot the past few years, so if you ask around you'll likely find you know of someone who has tried their hand at flipping a house.
SEE ALSO: Mother's Day gift ideas for moms who jus

Brace yourselves, true believersAvengers: Endgame will be Stan Lee's final Marvel Cinematic Universe appearance.
"It’s his last one committed to film," director Joe Russo confirmed to Mashable at a press day in Los Angeles. (Previously, he had said he was not sure if Lee had shot one for the upcoming Spider-Man: Far From Home.)
While the Russos didn't say what, exactly, Lee's cameo would be in the movie, they were happy to reminisce about their time with the comics legend. 
Anthony Ru

In a few weeks, Tesla buyers will have to pay more for an option that isn’t yet completely functional, but that CEO Elon Muskpromises will one day deliver full autonomous driving capabilities.
Musk tweeted Saturday that the price of its full self-driving option will “increase substantially over time” beginning May 1.
Tesla vehicles are not self-driving. Musk has promised that the advanced driver assistance capabilities on Tesla vehicles will continue to improve until eventually

Jarno M. Koponen Contributor Jarno M. Koponen is working on intelligent systems and human-centered personalization. He currently is product lead at Yle, one of the leading media houses in the Nordics. More posts by this contributorA new hope: AI for news media AI on your lock screen
New machine learning technologies, user interfaces and automated content creation techniques are going to expand the personalization of storytelling beyond algorithmically generated news feeds and content recommenda