Technology news

Fortnite players took on a different kind of mission on Saturday morning. 
Instead of water skiing via a fishing pole attached to a shark or battling against monster hordes, players were challenged to think about systemic racism in a series of conversations dubbed "We the People." Van Jones, a CNN political commentator spoke with former editor-in-chief Elaine Welteroth and The Atlantic writer Jemele Hill. Hill then took over and interviewed rapper Killer Mike, whose speech at a May 29 press

If you haven't subscribed to Disney+ but are missing those magical movies, you'll be glad to know that Netflix is still showing a handful of Disney films.
The streaming service offers a varied collection of Disney features, from traditional animations to newer live-action hits. While all these will likely migrate to Disney+ in the future, now's the time to catch them on Netflix while you still can.
Get ready to use your imagination as we take a closer look at eight Disney movies you can watch vi

Hamilton is here for Disney+ subscribers.
Thanks to the COViD-19 pandemic, Broadway will remain shut down through at least the beginning of 2021. But theater fans who subscribe to Disney+ received a gift on Friday in the form of a filmed version of Hamilton from 2016, featuring the original cast.
It's great, and really a top reason to be a Disney+ subscriber at this point. In the more than five years since Hamilton premiered, the only ways to experience the show have been the Original Cast Recor

Despite the coronavirus, competitive hot dog eating is still on. 
Competitive eater Joey Chestnut did not disappoint at the Nathan's Hot Dog Eating Contest for 2020, where he scarfed down 75 hot dogs and buns in 10 minutes, breaking his 2018 record of 74 hot dogs and buns in the same time period. Darron Breeden came in second in the men's competition, with 42 hot dogs and buns consumed in 10 minutes. Chestnut is now a 13-time winner of the contest, having lost only once in the last 14 years

Privacy-focused search engine DuckDuckGo has been restored in India after being unreachable for many users there since July 1st, Android Police reported. Reports about what was causing the outage have varied. Some users reported the Indian government appeared to be behind the block, and others said they were getting what appeared to be DNS lookup errors, according to Android Police.
DuckDuckGo tweeted that the service appeared to be restored in India as of Saturday morning.We’re seeing our

Hot Ones is back. The popular YouTube series, hosted by Sean Evans, challenges celebrities to eat increasingly spicy hot sauces as they field an array of deep-diving questions, is back. The guest? Captain Marvel herself, Brie Larson.
This is one of the first Hot Ones episodes to be released since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, so that means it's a remote sitdown. But Larson, a self-professed fan of spicy foods, turns out to be a game participant, digging into everything from her love of gam

Welcome back to This Week in Apps, the Extra Crunch series that recaps the latest OS news, the applications they support and the money that flows through it all.
The app industry is as hot as ever, with a record 204 billion downloads and $120 billion in consumer spending in 2019. People are now spending three hours and 40 minutes per day using apps, rivaling TV. Apps aren’t just a way to pass idle hours — they’re a big business. In 2019, mobil

Jimmy "MrBeast" Donaldson is at it again.
The YouTuber, who is known for his elaborate stunts and cash giveaways, challenged willing participants to join his "Finger on the App" competition. The premise was simple: Be the last person to take your finger off your phone screen while the game plays and win up to $25,000. Though the rules stipulated that all players who didn't cash out would decide how much money people win if there was more than one winner. 
Donaldson partnered with the intern

LinkedIn's iOS app has taken the ongoing issue of snooping at users' clipboards to whole, new level. The company has already said it's a mistake that will be fixed.
The issue of iOS apps monitoring copy-paste data has been a subject of concern since March, when a pair of software developers published their research. Tommy Mysk and Talal Haj Bakry discovered that a large number of existing apps (at the time) checked out users' clipboard data every time those apps were opened.
This is alarming whe

No company has quite figured out the perfect group streaming app, but Hulu and Plex have both put together intriguing solutions for this era of social distancing.
Hulu has leveraged its massive and diverse streaming library to offer Hulu Watch Party. The feature's a simple way to sync up playback with a handful of friends and chat with them while you watch Hulu programming. On the other side of the ring is Plex Watch Together, an experimental new feature that lets you watch pretty much anything

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Reddit says it’s releasing a fix for a piece of code that copied contents from users’ clipboards. Users in a beta version of iOS 14, which sends an alert when an app tries to copy clipboard information, reported receiving the alerts with each keystroke in Reddit’s iOS app.
“We tracked this down to a codepath in the post composer that checks for URLs in the pasteboard and then suggests a post title based on the text contents of the

Congratulations! You've survived the first half of 2020! Does the idea of there being a full six months left in this godforsaken year make you want to violently vomit? Yeah...us too.
Emotionally speaking, the first half of 2020 has lasted approximately six months and 487 years. 
Quarantine time distortion is a real thing. That's why we're willing to bet that you will not believe the events we've compiled on this list actually took place in the year of our lord 2020. Time is a human construc

The Fourth of July is a time for pool floats, BBQs, and great deals. Since flocking to the stores to spend your cash isn't the safest or best idea these days, we've done you the honor of rounding up some discounts on accessories to upgrade your BBQ game for the holiday and beyond. 
From tabletop grills and cleaning essentials to thermometers and toolsets, there's lots here to help you build out a five-star backyard restaurant. Even better, the more you spend, the more you save. If you spend

TL;DR: Stay (relatively) protected (while still being able to eat and drink) with a zippered face cover for $26.99, a 22% savings as of July 4. Unless you're living under a news-free rock, you know that cities everywhere are seeing spikes in coronavirus cases. Beyond social distancing and frequently washing your hands, the key to reducing the spread of the virus is simple: wear a mask. 
But how does one eat or drink while wearing a mask? It's actually possible. Thanks to Shut Your Mout

TL;DR: Say goodbye to tangles with Evercable's 4.35-foot steel armored cable for $18.95, a 17% savings as of July 4.Charging cables fray. It's a fact of life. Or is it? The team behind Evercable is on a mission to make their cable the last charging cable you'll ever need. And even if that's not feasible in the long run, the premise is certainly intriguing.
So what makes Evercable different? For starters, this 4.35-foot cable has a stainless steel casing making it not only durable but tangle-free

TL;DR: A two-year subscription to Surfshark is on sale for $1.99 per month as of July 4, saving you 83% on list price.There is nothing worse than subscribing to a streaming service and finding out that the show you wanted to watch isn't available in your location. Thankfully, there is something you can do to avoid this upsetting situation.
VPNs hide your real IP address so streaming services can't see your real location, meaning you can watch all the content that is normally blocked. This opens

TL;DR: Edit your photos with the award-winning Luminar 4 bundle for $59, a 75% savings as of July 4.You know what they say, a picture is worth a thousand words. In this day and age, it could also be worth thousands of dollars. 
Whether you're navigating a marketing campaign for your business or simply trying to achieve the perfect Instagram post as an aspiring influencer, it all starts with a good photo. And you flat out can't get there without a photo editing software like the Luminar 4 Bu

Fourth of July is typically all about time with friends, beer, fireworks, grilled meats, and a few good sales. This year, we're left with beer, meat, and sales. So let's make the most of what we got.
What follows below are 28 sales worth celebrating. Depending on what you're shopping for, you can enjoy 15% off if you spend $50 or more with the code JULYFOURTH15 or get an even bigger discount of 20% off if you spend $75 or more with the coupon JULYFOURTH20. 
SEE ALSO: Best Fourth of July sal

TL;DR: The Microsoft Excel from Beginner to Advanced class is on sale for £8.82 as of July 4, saving you 92% on list price.Everyone uses Excel, but not everyone excels at Excel.
Even if you think you know everything about the ubiquitous spreadsheet tool, think again. Excel isn't just meant to be used to calculate your monthly coffee budget. It can also do other mind-blowingly cool stuff like make and play sudoku puzzles, automate your tasks, and create animations.
SEE ALSO: Make sense of S

TL;DR: A lifetime subscription to Live Streaming Fitness is on sale for £63.39 as of July 4, saving you 84% on list price.How many times have you made a resolution to workout more often? And how many times have you abandoned that resolution just a few weeks later?
We get it: exercising sucks. Thankfully, there are lots of fun options for becoming healthier – and we're not just talking about Peloton. Live Streaming Fitness, for instance, is a great option that will only cost you &poun

Even in the darkest of times, our Netflix queues shine bright. 
Thus far, 2020 has been a bit of a...bumpy ride. Thankfully for the Netflix-subscribed among us, the streaming service's steady offering of original series has provided some much needed consistency. Over the past six months, we've enjoyed the returns of old series favorites like Dead To Me, Ozark, and Grace & Frankie, alongside new sensations like Love Is Blind, Outer Banks, and [sigh] Tiger King. We even got more Dating Ar

You'll likely tell your grandkids about the protests you attended in 2020. 
Future historians, too, will toil over the twists that emerged on what felt like a daily basis throughout the coronavirus pandemic. Even before COVID-19 fully gripped the world, 2020 was shaping up to be a year of activism. 
Then, of course, the virus disrupted that — for a time. With much of the world implementing some form of social distancing, more routine protests, such as climate strikes and the LGBT