Facebook was going to compete with Google for some advertising sales but backed away from the plan after the companies cut a preferential deal, according to court documents. In 2017, Facebook said it was testing a new way of selling online advertising that would threaten Google’s control of the digital ad market. But less than […]
A home can be more than meets the eye. If you look behind a bookcase, under a trap door, or down an obscure staircase, there may be more property lurking. Secret rooms and passages that may have been a part of the house from the very beginning or savvy additions added later on by inspired […]
Automation and Jobs Read our latest special issue. Open Now Even if you occasionally worked from home before the COVID-19 pandemic, there’s a good chance you weren’t prepared for the challenges of doing so five days a week — especially if your partner and/or children share your newly combined living and working space. A house […]
An Apple engineer who helped launch the iPod said he helped the US government build a secret version of the device that could covertly collect data. David Shayer, the second software engineer hired for the iPod project in 2001, said he first learned of the project in 2005, when he received an office visit from […]
Kevin Bacon and Amanda Seyfried start in the forthcoming psychological horror film You Should Have Left. Kevin Bacon achieved cult success with 1990’s Tremors, but he also starred in another film that somehow didn’t achieve the same lasting success, despite being one of his strongest performances. That film is Stir of Echoes (1999), an unjustly ignored supernatural […]
(Reuters) — Electric car maker Tesla plans to introduce a new low-cost, long-life battery in its Model 3 sedan in China later this year or early next that it expects will bring the cost of electric vehicles in line with gasoline models, and allow EV batteries to have second and third lives in the electric […]
One of the more mundane, but critical, challenges when it comes to building future space habitats, such as moon bases, is the prohibitive cost of transporting materials from Earth. The cost of transporting just 0.45 kilos (that’s roughly equal to about five blueberry muffins) from Earth is around $ 10,000. The Holy Grail, therefore, would […]
If you miss flip phones, you will like Samsung’s latest foldable phone that will reportedly debut early next year. Bloomberg reports that Samsung is working on its second foldable phone, which will fold down just like a flip phone. The screen would be 6.7 inches and would fold into a compact square. Samsung is reportedly […]
BEIJING — China has turned its western region of Xinjiang into a police state with few modern parallels, employing a combination of high-tech surveillance and enormous manpower to monitor and subdue the area’s predominantly Muslim ethnic minorities. Now, the digital dragnet is expanding beyond Xinjiang’s residents, ensnaring tourists, traders and other visitors — and digging […]
Machine learning is changing the $ 1 billion esports market, which is projected to reach $ 1.8 billion by 2022. Computer scientists have made great strides over the past decade to vastly improve the way AI learns human language, big data, and strategy. AI in gaming is rapidly changing, including player-athlete performance, conversational assistants, game […]
On Sunday, March 30, U.S. Secret Service agents apprehended a 28-year-old Chinese woman by the name of Yujing Zhang attempting to sneak onto President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida. On Zhang’s person at the time were four cell phones, a laptop, an external hard drive and one thumb drive, the contents of which were virulent […]
Major forces in the gaming industry have gotten into the habit of bottling magic in the form of classic console revivals in miniature forms and Sega is next up to connect a direct line of nostalgia to gamers with the announcement of the Sega Genesis Mini. The console will cost $ 80 and pre-orders are […]
Oprah Winfrey.Paul Drinkwater/NBCUniversal via Getty Images In 1989, Oprah Winfrey’s breakout talk show had only been on the air for a few years, and it was following what was then the daytime TV trend towards shocking content. One particular episode gave Winfrey qualms: She had interviewed a group of skinheads rooting for the Klu Klux […]
What’s the best way to communicate with a person when they’re outside of normal speaking distance? Call them on their phone, obviously. But what if the person either doesn’t have a phone with them — or you’re just looking for a high-tech communication method that’s a little more James Bond in its nature? Researchers from […]
Gearbox CEO Randy PitchfordChristian Petersen/Getty Images Video game studio Gearbox Software is engaged in contentious legal battle with the company’s former general counsel, Wade Callender. Gearbox initially filed a lawsuit against Callender alleging that he misused company funds for to pay for tuition, a home loan, and other personal expenses. In a countersuit, Callender leveled […]