Technology news

The internet is full of spoilers, making it a dangerous place to hang around if you’re trying to steer clear of what happens in Avengers: Endgame, Game of Thrones, or any other TV shows, movies, or video games that you’re still catching up on. Even when you think you’ve got things under control, Google’s autocomplete feature has spoiled things before. URLs can contain spoilers, too.In addition, trolls can embed spoilers in unrelated content. When Star Wars: The Force Awa

The New York attorney general’s office has opened an investigation into Facebook after it was discovered earlier this month that the company had the email contacts belonging to over 1.5 million people without their consent.
“It is time Facebook is held accountable for how it handles consumers’ personal information,” Attorney General Letitia James said in a statement. “Facebook has repeatedly demonstrated a lack of respect for consumers’ information while at t

Amazon wants to continue its dominance over e-commerce, but it can only grow so much. In its first quarter earnings posted today, Amazon revealed record-high profit, more than double what investors predicted, and revenue was in line with Wall Street expectations, at $59.7 billion. But the company is again entering a period of high spending that, coupled with its slow revenue growth, may prove an obstacle down the line.It’s clear Amazon is still an extremely profitable company, as the thir

Facebook is banning personality quiz apps, which have for years been able to collect and store a great deal of information about their users. The ban comes a year after the Cambridge Analytica scandal, where it came out that the data firm had acquired information on up to 87 million people through the quiz app “thisisyourdigitallife.”
To be clear, personality quizzes themselves were not the problem here. While they offer an easy way for unscrupulous developers to gather masses of da

Much has been made of the World Health Organization’s new recommendations that caregivers restrict the amount of time young kids stare at screens. But the guidelines are less about the risks of screen time itself, and more about the advantages of spending time doing pretty much anything else.The recommendations are broadly about physical activity and sleep for children under five years old, and are an attempt to create healthy habits during a critical developmental window. Among the recom

Battle royale video games are not really power fantasies, especially if you’re one of the majority of players on the losing end of a match. Being dropped onto an island with fellow scavengers and scrounging around for what little firearms and ammo you can get your hands on creates a tense, anything-can-happen atmosphere. You’re supposed to feel vulnerable all the time. That’s not the case in Fortnite’s big Avengers: Endgame crossover event. The limited-time game mode is

Ever wish you could pick up your TV and carry it around with you? Samsung and AT&T are gearing up to launch a new device you might be interested in: The Galaxy View 2.
Like its predecessor, which was released in 2015, the Galaxy View 2 is an Android tablet that's designed to be used as a TV. The LTE-connected TV tablet features a 17.3-inch full HD touch screen (down from the original's 18.4-inch display) and quad speakers with Dolby Atmos Sound. It comes with a built-in stand, so you can eas

AT&T and Verizon have revealed that upgrade rates have hit all-time lows for the two carriers, with fewer existing customers upgrading their devices, as noted by Bloomberg.The downward trend in upgrades isn’t exactly new: upgrade rates have been trending downward for years, but the record lows recorded by the two the largest carriers in the US paint a stark picture, both for AT&T and Verizon and hardware manufacturers like Apple and Samsung. It means fewer customers are interested

Imagine you're in high school, goofing around and chatting with your friends when your teacher breaks out the classic phrase — "you won't be able to get away with this in college!" 
The image is then conjured in your mind of how college must be a time insanely rigid deadlines (no extensions EVER), uptight teachers with inflexible lateness policies, and an overwhelming mountain of coursework. And yeah, some professors are unfortunately, like that. 
However, most of the time, colle

After pledging to make cultural changes following a mass walkout of employees last year, Google said today that it will change how employees can report harassment and discrimination allegations.Google has faced a year of backlash from employees, culminating in 20,000 workers walking off the job in November. The workers demanded changes, and Google executives met some of those demands. CEO Sundar Pichai announced that month that the company would make arbitration option for sexual harassment and

Joe Biden is officially running for president in 2020, and from the looks of his first day in the race it's going to be a long, awkward journey.
As you may remember, Biden served as Barack Obama's vice president for eight years, and the two men were exceptionally close. Their "bromance" was talked about constantly, they exchanged friendship bracelets, and Obama even awarded Biden the Medal of Freedom. But because they were such genuine pals, Obama's in a pretty strange spot right now.
On Thursda

We’re approaching a weird weekend of pop culture grief. Thursday, April 25th, marks the release of Avengers: Endgame, the follow-up to Avengers: Infinity War, in which literally half the universe died. Just a few days later, on Sunday, April 28th, the latest episode of Game of Thrones will send the majority of the show’s surviving cast into an epic battle with the undead horde of White Walkers sweeping down from beyond the Wall. Both Endgame and Game of Thrones have something unusua

As of Thursday morning, the US’s Central Intelligence Agency has launched its very own Instagram account, verification badge and all.The launch came as no real surprise seeing as CIA Director Gina Haspel announced last week that the intelligence agency would begin building out a presence on the photo-sharing platform during a talk at Auburn University in Alabama. The CIA already boasts sizable followings on other platforms like Facebook and Twitter, but had yet to make the jump over to In

You can save $200 on Google Pixel 3 and Pixel 3 XL phones at the Google Store until 11:59PM PT on May 6th. Normally $799, the Pixel 3 is selling for $599, while the Pixel 3 XL, which usually starts at $899, is down to $699. You can save a bit more money on either if you have a phone to trade in: Google currently offers up to $610 back for the iPhone XS Max. The resale value of most other Android phones is pitifully small by comparison.
Earlier this week, Google Fi ran a day-long $400-off price

Joe Biden is now officially in the 2020 race and along with a lot of baggage and controversy, he's also brought a new fun 404 error page to the campaign. 
But where does Biden's page stand in the context of every candidate that's declared for 2020? After all, there are nearly two dozen candidates. 
We've compiled a ranking of the 404 error page from every candidate's website from worst to best. All 23 of them. 
One note: these candidates were based off of the New York Times' list

Apex Legends was a massive hit out of the gate, but since then, many players have complained about a lack of content updates, especially compared to the constantly changing Fortnite. Today, in a surprising reveal, executive producer Drew McCoy explained that this won’t necessarily be changing any time soon.
“Our long-term goal is to ensure Apex Legends always feels alive and thriving, with a focus on quality of content over novelty or speed of release,” McCoy wrote in a blog p

Scheduling your streaming for next month? Hulu's got some hilarious suggestions.
If you're already missing Broad City, then plan on beginning your first full rewatch this May, when Abbi and Ilana's final season of shenanigans comes to Hulu, completing the streaming service's Broad City collection.
Folks looking for new comedic ground should check out the premiere of Hulu's serialized take on Joseph Heller's Catch-22. Starring Christopher Abbott, Kyle Chandler, George Clooney, Hugh Laurie, and mo

Fortnite creator Epic Games is facing a lawsuit from New York City-based saxophonist Leo Pellegrino, who claims the developer has used his likeness without permission when designing a saxophone dance in the game. The lawsuit was filed today in federal court for the eastern district of Pennsylvania.
The emote, called “Phone It In,” lets players whip out the brass instrument and play a quick tune while dancing. Pellegrino, best known for his Brass House band Too Many Zooz, says his &l

In the first week of April, a Japanese spacecraft blasted a small crater into an asteroid more than 180 million miles from Earth — and now we’ve finally got the first images of its explosive handy work. The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency, which operates the excavating spacecraft, released before and after pictures of the new crater site, showing a slight indentation in the rock that wasn’t there before.
The new crater is the product of Hayabusa2, which has been hanging out

Is spring going by so fast that you have very little spring cleaning to show for it? The right vacuum cleaner can give you the proper motivation to tidy up a bit. You wouldn't want your home to look like a mess for guests of your weekly Game of Thrones potluck dinners. While a robot vacuum can get the job done, a traditional Dyson upright vacuum on sale right now will help you take care of more messes in harder to reach nooks and crannies. 
Tackle those messes after you save $110 on a Dyson

As the recent documentary Horror Noire lays out, most early American horror films featuring black characters play very different for black audiences than for white ones. Traditionally, in American horror stories, people of color have been associated with a monstrous, vengeful, often magical Other that threatens white purity. As POC creators have entered the horror field to add new perspectives, though, innovative new narratives have flipped those tropes. In more recent stories, affluent white p

The Battle of Winterfell is finally happening on this week’s Game of Thrones, and the only thing that could possibly make that more exciting is the opportunity to watch it in glorious 4K on a huge TV — and Walmart has just the thing. 
SEE ALSO: Best 4K TVs for gaming: Samsung QLED, LG OLED, Sony, and more
Transform your home theater setup with this stellar 4K TV from Vizio — it’s $130 off right now at Walmart, and you’ll be really happy that you made the invest

Moog has debuted a new synth called the Matriarch, which will be built and available to play with on-site at its Moogfest in Durham, North Carolina. The Matriarch is a patchable semi-modular analog synth that follows in the footsteps of previous Moog releases, like the Mother-32 and Grandmother.
As with other synths the company has put out, Moog says the Matriarch doesn’t require any patching to make cool sounds, but if you want to dive in, there’s an array of different kinds of syn

Most pokémon are adorable, cuddly creatures that you want to just squeeze to your chest and never let go. Finally, Build-A-Bear is letting people create a snuggly pal based on the most underrated pokémon: Psyduck.Psyduck, the poor, confused yellow duck who’s forced to stagger around the world with a bad headache and no ibuprofen in sight, is Build-A-Bear’s latest addition to its Pokémon lineup. It’s being added just in time for Detective Pikachu, Warner Br

The inventions of the Instant Pot and air fryer revolutionized how we cook. Event the laziest of us can now prepare a meal by pushing a few buttons and feel like we belong on Top Chef. But who has the space for all of these new contraptions? If space is limited in your kitchen, a new Ninja cooker on sale right now can help you cook and fry meals to please even the most discerning palate.
Cook everything your heart desires and save $80 on the Ninja Foodi all-in-one pressure cooker, air fryer, and

White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders probably thought holding a mock press briefing on "Take Our Daughters and Sons to Work Day 2019" would go smoothly but, hoo boy, was she wrong.
While Sanders was fine hosting a group of kids (mostly the children of the White House press corps), she hasn't hosted an actual press briefing for actual reporters in 45 days which is a new record. Kids of WH Press Corps members are getting ready for a briefing with @PressSec. Their parents have no

Spoilers ahead for Game of Thrones, season 8, episode 2, “A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms.”
“A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms,” the second episode of Game of Thrones’ final season, is crammed with fireside chats and cold reunions, including one between Arya Stark and two men she traveled with in earlier seasons: the Hound and Beric Dondarrion. It’s a meeting heavy with unspoken emotions coming from bad memories. Beric tells Arya, “My lady, it’s good

When every roommate or family member requires a cup of joe before thinking about socializing, a single-serve coffee maker may not cut it — but who has the counter space for that plus a big drip coffee maker? In this economy?
The Hamilton Beach 2-Way Brewer is the ultimate solution for households with varying caffeine needs — and it's $30 off at Walmart today, making it just $49.99. That's two coffee makers for less than 50 bucks.
From one person's caffeine fix to tending to a ki

It’s a great time to be a Nintendo Switch owner — some of the best video games in recent memory are exclusive to the portable console, and anyone who hasn’t taken part is seriously missing out. If you currently own a Switch (or are pondering purchasing one soon) you can currently grab a few of the system’s most lauded titles at a nice discount over at Walmart — beating Amazon’s prices by $10-$20. Check out some of the highlights:
SEE ALSO: Find your perfect pl

Slack, the popular workplace messaging service, is taking its next step as it prepares to go public.
According to the Wall Street Journal, Slack is planning to release its listing prospectus to the public by Friday. The document will reveal that the messaging startup is set to pull in $500 million in annual revenue for the year, although the company will still not be profitable.
SEE ALSO: This Slack channel will give you $1,000 if you guess the right word
Slack confidentially filed to go public

Welcome to the 'gram, CIA fam!
Ok, I'm sorry for that rhyme. But sometimes you've gotta roll out the welcome mat for your friendly shady government agency with a problematic legacy, right?
SEE ALSO: The CIA is very interested in your tweets and Instagram photos
On Thursday, the CIA officially joined Instagram with the handle — wait for it — @CIA. This makes good on CIA director Gina Haspel's somewhat off-the-cuff announcement earlier in April that the agency had an account in the wor

Privacy regulators in Canada have determined that Facebook broke local privacy laws by mishandling user data. On Thursday, the regulators announced that they would be taking the company to court to force it to change how it protects consumer privacy.
“Facebook’s refusal to act responsibly is deeply troubling given the vast amount of sensitive personal information users have entrusted to this company,” says Daniel Therrien, privacy commissioner of Canada. “Their privacy f

Amazon’s fulfillment centers are the engine of the company — massive warehouses where workers track, pack, sort, and shuffle each order before sending it on its way to the buyer’s door.
Critics say those fulfillment center workers face strenuous conditions: workers are pressed to “make rate,” with some packing hundreds of boxes per hour, and losing their job if they don’t move fast enough. “You’ve always got somebody right behind you who’s r

Major creators are continuing to remove their shows from Luminary, the $100 million subscription podcast startup, over its business model, and even more are leaving after the company was exposed for using a proxy server that hides listener data from creators.
Joe Rogan’s popular show was pulled from the platform yesterday, and Barstool Sports CEO Erika Nardini said her network’s shows would be pulled, too. The New York Times was already withholding its blockbuster hit The Daily, and

UPDATE: April 25, 2019, 1:07 p.m. EDT Cyclone Kenneth "slammed into Mozambique" early Thursday afternoon Eastern Time, reports NOAA's Cooperative Institute for Meteorological Satellite Studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
The storm — which may have struck as powerful Category 4 cyclone — struck just north of the city of Pemba, home to some 200,000 people. After Cyclone Idai dumped enough water on Mozambique to create a sprawling inland sea in March, yet another powerf

Spring is here and nature is in full bloom again, which is amazing — unless you have allergies, in which case it kind of sucks. According to the National Institutes of Health, carpets are huge allergen attractors, so even when you’re inside the comfort of your home, you’re not necessarily in the clear from itchy eyes and a runny nose.
Regularly vacuuming your floors can significantly improve the air quality of your home and remove those irritating allergens. Let’s be real