Technology news

Twitteris finally letting you do more with Retweets. In a small but useful update rolled out today, Twitter will now allow users to add a photo, video or GIF to a Retweet, instead of only text.
The feature is live today on iOS, Android and Twitter’s mobile website.
Though a seemingly minor upgrade, the addition is notable because of its potential to significantly impact the amount of media that’s shared to Twitter.
Today, retweeting with a comment is a common user behavior — so

Days after Facebook and Instagram banned a litany of prominent far-right voices, it looks like the latter of the two apps is stepping up its anti-fake news efforts.
Instagram will start using a similar fact-checking process as Facebook to demote posts that spread bad information, rather than remove them entirely. The news came courtesy of the journalism nonprofit Poynter, which has fact-checking efforts of its own. 
It sounds essentially the same as what Facebook has been doing since shortl

If you're reading this article let me be the first to say congratulations — not only on your impending graduation, but on having excellent taste in television shows. 
You are graduating. That means you're like, really smart now. And any really smart fan of The Office would want to finish off the school year in style — by decorating their graduation cap with references to the beloved employees of Dunder Mifflin.
From Michael Scott and Kelly Kapoor quotes, to Scott's Tots and bank

Filmmakers often define their movies by making distinctive visual choices. Whether it’s Victor Fleming signaling The Wizard of Oz’s shift from Kansas to Oz by introducing bold Technicolor, or Zack Snyder reinventing the ancient world on a digital soundstage with 300, some films stand out because they introduce cinematic worlds that don’t look like anything that’s come before.
Add to that list Zhang Yimou’s Shadow, a historical fantasy-drama that reimagines the pala

Android P — officially known as Android 9 Pie — was always going to be the easy one.
From Popsicle to Peppermint to Pastry to Popcorn to Pop-Tarts to Praline to Peanut Brittle to Pop Rocks to Pancake to Panna Cotta to Pez to Peeps to Pudding to Parfait to Pocky to Pound Cake to Punschkrapfen to Profiterole to Patbingsu, there was a plethora of possibilities for P’s pseudonym. (And that’s not even counting fruits like Pear, Passionfruit, Pumpkin, Plum, Peach, or Pamplemou

Hey, would you look at that. A change to Twitter that won't immediately be universally reviled.
The social media platform announced Monday that, starting immediately on mobile, users can add GIFs to retweets. That's right, you no longer have to just slap a downward pointing finger emoji on your retweets and call it a day. 
"Starting today, you can do something new with your Retweets – add a GIF," Twitter explained in an email to reporters. "Now, the same photos, videos, and GIFs that

The Federal Trade Commission is suing a man for allegedly running off with more than $800,000 he raised on crowdfunding platforms under the premise of creating a smart backpack and other products. The Verge first broke the news of the iBackpack investigation in August, but today marks the agency’s first acknowledgment of its work.
The lawsuit claims that the creator, Doug Monahan, didn’t use his raised Indiegogo or Kickstarter funds to develop or deliver the backpack, but instead, h

Extinction is coming.
Though, in large part, it already has. On Monday, the United Nation's Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) published an exhaustive report on the planet's accelerating extinction rate. The report — compiled over three years by 145 scientific authors with input from over 300 more — found that the modern extinction rate is the highest it's been in human history, and is "tens to hundreds of times" higher than the n

Of all the twists and turns on Game of Thrones’ most recent episode “The Last of the Starks,” the most shocking one for most of the internet was the appearance of an out-of-place cup of Starbucks coffee. Was it an uncharacteristic slip-up from one of the most expensive shows on television? Or perhaps it was a more sinister attempt at product placement for the ubiquitous coffee chain?
According to Bernie Caulfield, an executive producer on the show, the offending cup was just a

Of all the twists and turns on Game of Thrones’ most recent episode “The Last of the Starks”, the most shocking one for most of the internet was the appearance of an out-of-place cup of Starbucks coffee. Was it an uncharacteristic slip up from one of the most expensive shows on television? Or perhaps it was a more sinister attempt at product placement for the ubiquitous coffee chain.Well, according to Bernie Caulfield, an executive producer on the show, the offending cup was j

Don’t have a VPN? Here's your cue: get one now before it’s too late. 
Sorry not sorry for waxing dramatic, but if you’ve seen shows like Black Mirror and Mr. Robot, then you’re aware of the possibility that society is morphing into a tech dystopia in which it’s always open season on your digital privacy. Oh, and there’s the fact that two-thirds of all hotels leak your personal deets. And the ongoing drama that is the life of Mark Zuckerberg — you kn

Shopping for your non-tech-savvy parents can be a pretty tall order to fulfill. You don’t want to get anything too complicated, but you also don’t want to get something so basic that they can’t do much with it. It also depends on their skill level — do they barely know how to send an email? Or are they literal PowerPoint pros who only need help in a few other areas? 
SEE ALSO: 8 of the best laptop backpacks, based on customer reviews
With Mother’s Day coming up

Beginning today, Twitter users can add images, videos, and GIFs to their retweets / quoted tweets. The company is rolling out this new feature across Android, iOS, and Twitter’s mobile website; it’s not on desktop quite yet, however. Adding media to a retweet works just like you’d expect: tap the “retweet with comment” option and then choose the image or GIF icon in the toolbar.The wait is overhttps://t.co/3W0witaZtg pic.twitter.com/v7J6WgRioD— Twitter (@Twit

Apple doesn’t always tell the world when it buys another company — but in reality, it’s quietly snapping up startups all the time. This weekend, CEO Tim Cook told CNBC that Apple purchases a new company every two to three weeks on average, and has bought between 20 and 25 companies in the last six months alone.
That’s roughly as often as I bought groceries during some... oh, let’s just call them “fresh vegetable adjacent” periods of my life.
You know ho

Microsofthas been leaning into accessibility in gaming lately, most visibly with its amazing Adaptive Controller, and a new patent suggests another way the company may be accommodating disabled gamers: an Xbox controller with a built-in Braille display.
As you might expect, it’s already quite hard for a visually impaired gamer to play some games, and although that difficulty can’t be entirely alleviated, there are definitely things worth doing. For instance: the text on screen that s

With Uberexpected to make its debut on the public market by Friday, May 10, on-demand ride-hailing drivers are planning to strike on Wednesday. The New York Taxi Workers Association is calling on U.S.-based drivers to stand in solidarity with drivers in London and log off from both Uber and Lyft on May 8 between 7 a.m. and 9 a.m.
STRIKE STRIKE STRIKE! We are calling on all people of good conscience in NYC to log off of the apps in 7 AM to 9 AM Wednesday, May 8th to support our strike. Don't use

Samsung’s Evo Select 512GB microSD card is currently $99.99 at Amazon, which is its lowest price yet. If you own a Nintendo Switch — or if your smartphone, tablet, or action camera features a microSD port — this is a relatively affordable route to take if you want a big upgrade to your expandable storage.
Up against SanDisk’s popular 400GB microSD card, this 512GB Samsung card has the obvious advantage when it comes to storage capacity. It also offers UHS Class 3 speeds

Facebooktoday announced a series of changes to the way it ranks videos on its social network, which determines how widely they’re distributed. According to the updated guidelines, Facebook will now prioritize videos that focus on original content, those where users are engaged for longer periods of time and those where users return repeatedly to watch more.
The company wants to feature more high-quality videos, and less of those that feature “unoriginal or repurposed content” f

At heart, all of us live for drama. 
Who doesn't love to watch a thread descend into a dumpster fire? There's so much joy in watching a tweet get brutally ratio'd, or reading a chaotic series of screenshots. At the end of the day, an episode of Gossip Girl can only go so far, and it's just never as satisfying as the wild hellscape of internet conflict.
If you have time to kill and plenty of WiFi, here are six places to get your fix for messy, messy drama. 
1r/relationshipsReddit's main

Most of the strategy discussions and news coverage in the media and entertainment industry is concerned with the unfolding corporate mega-mergers and the political implications of social media platforms.
These are important conversations, but they’re largely a story of twentieth-century media (and broader society) finally responding to the dominance Web 2.0 companies have achieved.
To entrepreneurs and VCs, the more pressing focus is on what the next generation of companies to transform en

Microsoft has started to tease what appears to be a new Minecraft game for mobile devices. The software giant used a video at the end of the company’s Build 2019 keynote today to show Minecraft in augmented reality, running on a phone. In the video, Minecraft creative director Saxs Persson leaves his phone on a bench outside the Washington State Convention Center where Microsoft’s Build developer conference is being held. A passerby picks it up and is able to see Minecraft running i

Android Auto is getting a little refresh, as Google announced a new version of its smartphone-powered infotainment system ahead of the company’s I/O developer conference this week. Due out this summer, it’s supposed to be more intuitive, actionable, and should require fewer taps to get things done — and it’s also going to sport a new default dark mode theme.
The highlight of the Android Auto design refresh is a new, more dynamic persistent navigation bar at the bottom of

AndroidAuto — the in-car platform that brings the look and functions of a smartphone to the vehicle’s central screen — is getting a new look and improved navigation and communication features that will roll out this summer.
The improvements and new look were revealed Monday during GoogleI/O 2019, the annual developer conference.
The most noticeable change might be the overall look of Android Auto. It now has a dark theme, new fonts and color accents designed to make it eas

When you sync your Android smartphone to your car's infotainment system in a few months, expect a darker look.
Android Auto, the in-car display connected to your smartphone, is getting a makeover this summer. Android Auto works in more than 500 car models across 50 different brands, like Toyota, which finally added Android Auto compatibility earlier this year. For iPhone users, CarPlay is Apple's version for in-car infotainment features.
SEE ALSO: Polestar 2's Google car dashboard will soon open

Late last week, a hacker stole data from hundreds of Git code repositories and is holding it all for ransom on their servers, threatening to release code to the public if affected owners don’t pay up. GitHub, Bitbucket, and GitLab users who reported that their code had disappeared found the following ransom note in its place:
“To recover your lost code and avoid leaking it: Send us 0.1 Bitcoin (BTC) to our Bitcoin address ES14c7qLb5CYhLMUekctxLgc1FV2Ti9DA and contact us by Email at

This review was originally published in February 2019, when the film was released in China, and in a limited theatrical run in America. It has been updated to reflect the film’s release on Netflix.
We’re living through a fascinating era of rapid change for the blockbuster movie model. America producers, eager to get their $200 million movies into the lucrative Chinese market, are increasingly looking for Chinese production partners, shooting in Chinese locations, and adding China-fr

By scanning the brains of adults who played Pokémon as kids, researchers learned that this group of people have a brain region that responds more to the cartoon characters than to other pictures. More importantly, this charming research method has given us new insight into how the brain organizes visual information.For the study, published today in the journal Nature Human Behavior, researchers recruited 11 adults who were “experienced” Pokémon players — meaning

Personal anecdote time: I finally watched Game of Thrones on a 4K TV and it changed my life.
I saw Brienne's tears in crystal-clear UHD and the contrast was so lifelike that I felt like I could reach out and strangle Jaime Lannister.
I've obviously watched stuff on a 4K TV before, but never realized how shitty it was to go home to 1080p. Last week, I finally bought a 2160p TV for myself and was able to really pay attention to the qualityThe cinematographer is right: The show isn't too dark, you

So far, OnePlus has kept the marketing spotlight on its upcoming OnePlus 7 Pro, the company’s next flagship phone with a pop-up camera and “breakthrough” display that will supposedly have a buttery-smooth 90Hz refresh rate. (It’s also apparently somewhat water resistant.) But there’s also a standard OnePlus 7 model coming alongside it, and today WinFuture shared some images of that device. It looks incredibly similar to last year’s OnePlus 6T, from the teardr

Over the weekend, Sen. Kamala Harris (D-CA) said that, if elected president in 2020, she would hold social media companies like Facebook and Twitter “accountable” for hate speech and radicalization on their platforms, according to The Hill.Harris announced her intentions to thwart domestic terrorism at the Fight for Freedom Fund Dinner at the Detroit NAACP on Sunday night. Throughout her speech, Harris discussed several recent attacks on racial and religious minority groups, like th