Technology news

T-Mobile today announced that its unlimited data plans will soon be called Magenta and Magenta Plus — a change from their current “T-Mobile One” branding. With the new names come some tweaks to how each plan works. First, T-Mobile is now including 3GB of LTE hotspot usage with the base Magenta plan. Previously, T-Mobile One was limited to 3G tethering speeds.But there’s bigger adjustment for people on family plans: T-Mobile is downgrading the quality of its “Netfli

The Baltimore city government is recovering from a devastating ransomware attack that has locked up its systems, but officials in the city faced a new problem today. As first reported by The Baltimore Sun, Google blocked city departments from using Gmail accounts created as a workaround.
Ransomware attack hit May 7th
On May 7th, a ransomware attack froze government systems, including email, and demanded the city hand over bitcoin to reverse the hack. Weeks later, the city is still recovering fr

The Justice Department has filed 17 new criminal charges against WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange. The charges follow a much more limited indictment unsealed in April, when Assange was charged with violating the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act. According to the indictment, he’s now facing several counts of obtaining and disclosing national defense information without authorization, relating to what the Justice Department calls “one of the largest compromises of classified information i

Companies store a ton of data. You know this. Everyone knows this. But we’re not always happy about the kinds of data they store. We rightfully get pretty touchy when we hear our address, credit card number, mental health inquiries, or private conversations are just hanging out on some internet server where they might wind up in the wrong hands — like, say, an employee of the company that collected them.
The latest example: Motherboard is reporting that Snapchat employees have a spe

It’s become increasingly clear that the wireless industry is trying to push the idea of speedy 5G wireless networks before the technology is actually ready. It’s a race, and the race is bullshit. But until today, we hadn’t realized that people’s lives might also be at stake.
As reported by The Washington Post and CNET, the heads of NASA and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) warn the issue could set back the world’s weather forecasting abili

To make a convincing deepfake — an AI-generated fake of a video or audio clip — you usually need a neural model that’s trained with a lot of reference material. Generally, the larger your dataset of photos, video, or sound, the more eerily accurate the result will be. But now, researchers at Samsung’s AI Center have devised a method to train a model to animate with an extremely limited dataset: just a single photo, and the results are surprisingly good.
The researchers a

Google Assistant is now available on the Sonos One and Sonos Beam, meaning you’ve now got a second choice besides Alexa for handling your voice commands. If Assistant is already controlling your smart home gadgets — or if you merely think it’s better at responding to questions than Alexa — it’s probably worth switching over.Even if you don’t own a Sonos speaker with a built-in mic like the One or Beam, you can still control the company’s other speakers

Amazon is gathering data about body types by inviting volunteers to get scanned, taped, and photographed. As spotted by Mashable, the company is running a study to “learn about diversity among body shapes,” offering a $25 gift card for a 30-minute appointment in New York. Participants will take a survey and assent to 3D scans (plus photos and videos) of their body — first in their everyday attire, then in “form-fitting” clothing.
The study is run by Amazon Body Lab

I have a dumb question that no one seems capable of answering directly: Why is 5G a race?
Everyone — the wireless industry, Democrats, Republicans, the major media, you name it — frames the building of next-generation 5G networks as a “race” in which the United States needs to demonstrate “leadership.”
Here is The Washington Post declaring America has the lead in the race to 5G. Here’s CNN asking “Who’s winning the race to 5G?” Here&rs

NASA has chosen satellite manufacturer Maxar Technologies to build the very first piece of the lunar Gateway — a new space station the agency wants to create in orbit around the Moon. The Gateway is meant to serve as a future outpost for astronauts in NASA’s newly minted Artemis lunar program. From this station, astronauts will travel in landers down to the Moon’s surface, and then journey back up to the Gateway before heading home.
Maxar will be making what is known as the po

Left hand turns are tough, and unprotected lefts — no traffic light or stop sign to guide the way — are even harder. This holds true for both human and robot drivers; even the most skilled self-driving car struggles to make a seamless left turn.Cruise, the self-driving division of General Motors, knows this to be true. In a video just published, the company calls unprotected left turns “one of the most difficult maneuvers” a self-driving car can perform. That’s why

GitHub is adding the ability for developers to accept recurring monthly payments from supporters, who can fund their work on open-source software. The feature, called GitHub Sponsors, works exactly like Patreon. Developers can offer various funding tiers that come with different perks, and they’ll receive recurring payments from supporters who want to access them and encourage their work.
Bringing this model to GitHub could be a huge addition for developers of open-source software. By its

Last spring, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg sat before Congress to atone for the company’s Cambridge Analytica scandal, and in the following months, momentum has built in the halls of the Capitol to regulate these giant tech companies, or even break them up.
“These days are over with,” Rep. Mark Meadows (R-NC) said at a House Oversight hearing yesterday where representatives from Facebook, Twitter, and Google testified on social media and election security. “You better com

Memorial Day is May 27th, a day of remembrance in the US. Though, like most holidays on the calendar, it’s also a day when a load of retailers lower prices, making it a good opportunity to tick a few boxes off of your wishlist (or someone else’s). And, aside from Amazon Prime Day 2019, which is expected to happen in mid-July, this might be your best chance to save on some tech products until Labor Day or Black Friday comes around later in the year.
Most of these sales have different

On Thursday, the Senate voted to approve a bill creating new carve outs for the Federal Communications Communications to better combat the growing scourge of robocalls by an overwhelming 97-1 vote.
A bipartisan proposal, the TRACED Act was introduced by Sens. John Thune (R-SD) and Ed Markey (D-MA). If passed, it would raise the fines the FCC is permitted to levy on robocallers, and increase the statute of limitations for bringing those cases. It would also create an interagency task force to ad

A Redditor who posted information about a Jehovah’s Witness-affiliated organization has won the right to defend themselves in court under a pseudonym. The Electronic Frontier Foundation, which represented the user known only as Darkspilver, successfully argued that unmasking them put them at risk of being cast out by their Jehovah’s Witness community.
Not only does the ruling mean that Darkspilver’s identity will not be revealed to the organization, the Watch Tower Bible and T

It’s understandable if it took people a while to come around to the idea of a live-action adaptation of Disney’s Aladdin directed by Guy Ritchie. The Howard Ashman and Alan Menken musical numbers in 1992’s Aladdin are iconic. They seem even more so after the death of the film’s original Genie, Robin Williams, who brought a memorable, highly personal performance style to “Prince Ali” and “Friend Like Me.” So the idea that Ritchie — who specia

Starting today, you can now order food directly from Google Search, Google Maps, or Google Assistant. The functionality works using partnerships with existing delivery companies like DoorDash, Postmates, and ChowNow, and means you can order from any of them without having to downloading an additional app, or even visiting their website.
In Google Search and Google Maps, the functionality works via a new “Order Online” button that will appear when you search for a supported restauran

Sir Patrick Stewart is back: CBS has just released the first teaser trailer for its upcoming series Star Trek: Picard, set to premiere later this year on the CBS All Access streaming service.
It’s a short teaser, but it sets the stage for the series, which appears to focus on an older Jean-Luc Picard. Based on the trailer, it seems that Picard has retired from serving as an admiral in Starfleet to run his family’s vineyards in France, before he’s presumably called back into ac

Tesla CEO Elon Musk told employees in a Wednesday night email that the company has a “good chance” of beating its record for deliveries this quarter. That record was set in the final quarter of 2018, when Tesla delivered just over 90,000 cars, 63,000 of which were Model 3s. Tesla previously predicted in April it would deliver around that many cars this quarter, but Wall Street’s expectations had soured recently.
Breaking the record, or even coming close, would mark a huge rebo

Instagram is no longer all-in on vertical video. The company announced today that its longform video offshoot, IGTV, will now support landscape video. Up until now, the company only supported vertical video, which was a feature focus during its launch nearly a year ago. Instagram says the change comes because of creator feedback and because some viewers are finding landscape videos on IGTV already but haven’t been able to turn their phones to watch them in fullscreen.“We realize thi

PlanetScale’sfounders invented the technology called Vitess that scaled YouTube. Now they’re selling it to any enterprise that wants their data both secure and consistently accessible. And thanks to its ability to re-shard databases while they’re operating, it can solve businesses’ troubles with GDPR, which demands they store some data in the same locality as the user to whom it belongs.
The potential to be a computing backbone that both competes with and complements Amaz

America’s trade war with China has been quietly escalating for years, but this week it took a turn for the disastrous. Huawei, once the rising star of China’s tech industry, has been cut off from US suppliers, leaving the company effectively stunted. China is likely to respond somehow, but with a multitude of options on the table, many in the tech industry are now considering nightmare scenarios.
Rare earth elements are crucial for high-tech manufacturing
One particularly chaotic op

When you wake up in the middle of the night in total darkness, it can feel as if you have auditory superpowers. Suddenly, you can hear floorboards creak storeys below and the softest rustle of foxes destroying the bins outside, once again. Indeed, it is common wisdom that when you lose one sense, the remaining senses heighten. Research with people experiencing long-term sensory deprivation, such as blindness or deafness, appears to support this notion. People born without sight can indeed feel

French startup Yousign is partnering with startup studio eFounders. While eFoundersusually builds software-as-a-service startups from scratch, the company is trying something new with this partnership.
Indeed, eFounders wants to create all the tools you need to make your work more efficient. The startup studio is behind many respectable SaaS successes, such as Front, Aircall and Spendesk. And electronic signatures are a must if you want to speed up your workflow.
Sure, there are a ton of well-es

I love it when a bit of gear surprises me. And today? That surprise is the weirdly brilliant games console the Playdate. This little handheld device (it measures 74mm × 76mm × 9mm) looks like a cross between the Pikachu GameBoy Color and GameBoy Advance, but with one major difference: it has a crank. Yes, a literal arm that you turn as though you’re operating an old school music box. Have a look: The Playdate’s screen is black-and-white (with

Best Buy CEO Hubert Joly has warned that consumers are likely to be hit by price increases as a result of the Trump administration’s proposed round tariffs reports Reuters. “The impact of tariffs at 25% will result in price increases and will be felt by U.S. consumers,” the CEO said on today’s earnings call.The comments have come just over a month before a public hearing is due to take place on June 17th, in which the 3,805 products that will be affected by tariffs of up

One of the world’s top Fortnite streamers filed a lawsuit this week claiming that the popular e-sports organization Faze Clan has been financially exploiting him. The lawsuit paints Faze Clan as abusive, pressuring the streamer to do dangerous stunts and drink underage, but the story is ultimately one about getting out of a contract, so that the increasingly successful streamer can stake out on his own. It’s a new situation for e-sports, but not for online video creators in general

Bookseller Barnes & Noble has announced that it is updating its Nook Glowlight Plus eReader. It will be available in stores starting on Monday, May 27, and online starting Wednesday, May 29, and will retail for $199.99.The company says that this larger Nook will have a 7.8-inch eInk display, which should be an appealing upgrade for readers — the regular Nook Glowlight 3 comes with a 6-inch screen. It’s also a little bigger than the company’s 7-inch Nook Tablet (a separate

Arnold Schwarzenegger said he’d be back in the first Terminator movie back in 1984 and 35 years later, that’s come true, again.He’s returned a few times since, but the first trailer for Terminator: Dark Fate reunites Schwarzenegger’s T-800 robot with Linda Hamilton’s Sarah Connor. The movie will introduce new characters to the franchise, including Mackenzie Davis (Halt and Catch Fire) as a new hybrid between terminator and human. Other actors, like Gabriel Luna (Ag

A man from upstate New York has been charged with providing false inspection reports and test certifications for parts used in SpaceX’s Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy rockets, as well as vehicles from other aerospace contractors employed by the Defense Department. The misconduct was brought to light thanks to an investigation from NASA’s inspector general, the FBI, and the Air Force’s office of special investigations.
The man, James Smalley, was a quality assurance engineer at PMI

Thailand‘s oldest bank, Siam Commerical Bank (SCM), has hinted it will be experimenting with blockchain technology powered by Ripple. Earlier this week, rumors of its blockchain pilot surfaced online after eagle-eyed users took to Twitter to share images of what appears to be a Ripple-based app for cross-border transactions. “Send money abroad today at the cheapest rates via Ripple,” reads a screenshot of the app, titled SCB Easy. SCB social media reps have since addressed spe