Tech NewsTwitter

With Trump in Hospital With Covid-19, Twitter Suddenly Decides That Wishing for Someone’s Death Is a No-No

Wishing someone else ill will or death is a disgusting act that makes the world worse. This lesson of common decency seems like it would be obvious to everyone, especially a social media network with hundreds of millions of users. Twitter, for its part, recently responded swiftly to the news of President Donald Trump’s covid-19 … Continued

Tech NewsNews

We Have a Date: Google, Facebook, and Twitter CEOs Will Testify Before Congress on Oct. 28

Less than a week before the 2020 presidential election, three of the biggest names in tech—Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, Google CEO Sundar Pichai, and Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey—will testify before the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation about a longstanding law that protects websites from liability for user-generated content. The committee unanimously voted to … Continued

Tech NewsNews

Kellyanne Conway Has Covid-19, And Her Daughter’s TikToks Broke the News

Former White House counselor Kellyanne Conway confirmed on Friday that she’s contracted covid-19 after her 15-year-old daughter broke the news in a series of TikToks revealing her mother’s positive diagnosis and denouncing President Donald Trump. “Tonight I tested positive for COVID-19,” Conway tweeted Friday evening. “My symptoms are mild (light cough) and I’m feeling fine. … Continued

Tech NewsPrivacy and Security

Serious Grindr Vulnerability Let Hackers Hijack User Accounts With Just an Email Address

The popular LGBT+ hook-up app Grindr has fixed a glaring security flaw that allowed hackers to take over any account if they knew the user’s registered email address, TechCrunch reports. Wassime Bouimadaghene, a French security researcher, originally uncovered the vulnerability in September. But after he shared his discovery with Grindr and was met with radio … Continued

Tech NewsGoogle

Google’s Daydream VR Is Officially, Really, Finally Dead

If you happen to be one of the few people who still use Google’s Daydream VR platform, I’m sorry to tell you that it’s officially dead. (If you didn’t know Daydream was a thing, that’s totally OK. I forgot it was, too.) Spotted by Android Authority, Google recently issued a service update for Daydream letting … Continued

Tech NewsGadgets

Just Buy a Dang Smartwatch

Let’s talk about smartwatches for a minute. I have, for an inordinate amount of time, been extremely averse to donning a smart device on my wrist. My reasons for this weird hangup were twofold, and, in retrospect, pretty dumb: First, I try to the best of my ability to limit the amount of time I … Continued

Tech NewsHellfeed

Facebook’s Dilemma, Subpoena Time, and Twitter: There Was an Attempt

It’s time for Hellfeed, your biweekly summary of who’s kicking and screaming online, and we really couldn’t have picked a better day: The president tweeted that he is ill with the novel coronavirus this morning and then totally dropped off the goddamn radar. While the nation waits for updates on the president’s condition—the White House … Continued

Tech News

Here Are a Bunch of Pictures of Donald Trump Taking the Pandemic Seriously

It couldn’t have happened to a nicer guy. I’m sure that’s what a lot of people were thinking when President Donald Trump announced on Friday morning that he and his wife, First Lady Melania Trump, had tested positive for covid-19, the disease caused by the novel coronavirus. No matter your politics, you can’t help but … Continued

Tech NewsNews

Open Channel: What’s the Trump Tweet Gonna Be?

Early Friday morning, the president—or some anonymous White House goon, it’s not always clear which—tweeted that he and the First Lady have tested positive for the novel coronavirus estimated to have infected at least 2.2 percent of the population and killed at least 208,000 Americans on his watch. This is more or less like if … Continued

Tech News

Here’s What Will Happen Next

The president of the United States has a deadly, airborne disease that has already killed more than 207,000 Americans and more than 1 million people worldwide. The U.S. now faces a national security crisis, the economy is in ruins, and we’re a month away from a contentious presidential election on which the very future of … Continued

Tech NewsNews

Biden Should Probably Still Quarantine

Joe Biden announced that he has, blessedly, tested negative for the coronavirus, three days after standing in the same airspace as a fuming, spitting, bellowing, now-coronavirus-positive Donald Trump. Though they stood on opposite ends of the stage, and did not shake hands, Trump and his family broke debate terms by going maskless in the audience, … Continued

Tech News

Here Are the 18 Congressional Representatives Who Refused to Condemn QAnon

House Resolution 1154 is a simple bill that barely fills five pages in Congressional formatting, and which passed the House of Representatives easily this afternoon with 370 votes in favor. Why this even remotely matters is that the bill—the entire purpose of which was to call for the condemnation of the QAnon conspiracy strictly within … Continued

Tech News

Twitter Wants to Replace Its Seemingly Racist Cropping Tool With Users Like You

Last month, Twitter apologized after users noticed that its automated tool for cropping photos appeared to favor subjects with light skin. The social network said that it was investigating bias in its existing machine learning algorithm, and on Thursday it announced that it has seen enough to know it’s time for a change. The issue … Continued

Tech NewsGadgets

Nvidia Pushes Back the Launch of the RTX 3070 to Avoid Furious Customers

It’s been a rough couple of weeks for anyone trying to order a shiny new graphics card or game console, and in order to prevent its next launch from going awry Nvidia is delaying the release of its RTX 3070 GPU. In a post on its website, Nvidia says that by pushing the launch date … Continued

Tech NewsGadgets

Tongue Brush

Inspired by the work of Simone Giertz who was once known across the internet as the Queen of Shitty Robots (her words, not ours) an Austrian-based design studio created what is easily the most unsettling tool that modern man has ever forged from the earth. Is it a paint brush? Is it a basting brush? … Continued

Tech NewsNews

A Brief History of the 72 Hours Before President Trump Was Diagnosed With Covid-19

President Donald Trump tweeted on October 2, 2020 at 12:54 a.m. ET that both he and First Lady Melania Trump had tested positive for covid-19, the disease that has sickened over 7.2 million Americans and killed over 207,000. Trump has infamously downplayed the severity of the pandemic, causing tens of thousands of deaths. But will … Continued

Tech NewsGadgets

HP’s Spectre x360 14 Ditches the Widescreen for 3:2 and I Think I’m In Love

HP’s premium Spectre x360 systems are already some of the most full-featured and eye-catching 2-in-1s on the market. But now HP is adding a new 14-inch convertible to the line sporting a bigger and taller 3:2 display along with updated specs for even better productivity. For the newest member of the Spectre line, it seems … Continued

Tech NewsAmazon

Nearly 20,000 Amazon Employees Have Contracted Covid-19 This Year

Amazon finally released data on the number of coronavirus cases among its workforce, and it’s staggering: Nearly 20,000 U.S. employees have contracted the virus since March. The e-commerce giant said in a blog post Thursday that between March 1 and Sept. 19, it counted 19,816 confirmed and presumed cases of covid-19, amounting to 1.44% of … Continued

Tech NewsFacebook

Facebook’s Latest QAnon Crackdown Scraps Ads, Pushes ‘Credible’ Info on #SavetheChildren Searches

In its ongoing crusade to keep QAnon stans from congealing on its platform, this week Facebook announced new restrictions aimed at limiting the conspiracy movement’s spread online. Facebook will reject ads that “praise, support or represent militarized social movements” including QAnon, anarchist groups, and self-proclaimed militias (like the violent mob that swarmed Kenosha, Wisconsin, in … Continued

Tech NewsPolitics

Wohl Hits Wall

The office of the Attorney General of Michigan announced felony charges on Thursday against far-right conspiracy theorists Jacob Wohl and Jack Burkman, saying the world’s least dynamic pro-Trump duo was behind tens of thousands of robocalls attempting to intimidate voters. If convicted on all four counts, they could face a max sentence of 24 years … Continued