Tech News

How Birdwatching Got Me to Finally Log Off and Actually Go Outside

Waking up in New York City can be like a safari—all you need to do is listen rather than open your phone the second your alarm goes off. I might notice five different species from my bed: sparrows cheeping, blue jays jay-ing, mourning doves cooing, cardinals pewing, and even a chickadee, well, chicka-dee-dee-deeing. If you’re … Continued

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The Price of Viagra Is Only Getting Even Stiffer

So much for President Donald Trump’s guarantee of “massive” drops in drug prices in the near future. On Monday, the pharmaceutical giant Pfizer announced a slew of price increases for many of its best-selling brand name drugs, including Viagra, the Financial Times first reported. Amazingly enough, it’s the second time Pfizer has increased some of … Continued

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Uganda Goes Through With Social Media Tax and People Are Pissed

The Ugandan government has implemented a law forcing mobile users to pay taxes to use mobile money and social media apps like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, WhatsApp, and Skype. As of July 1, people in Uganda have to pay 200 Ugandan shillings (about 5 cents in USD) a day if they want to use social media … Continued

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Drake Spam Flooded Spotify This Weekend, Making People Upset

Spotify just found out there’s such a thing as too much Drake. This weekend, Spotify users were bombarded with the stern visage of Aubrey “Drake” Graham as part of a promotional deal, known as “ScorpionSZN,” meant to promote the artist’s latest album, Scorpion. While Drake is definitely a household name, that doesn’t mean everyone on … Continued

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Instagram Under Fire for Removing Photo of Gay Couple

Instagram has apologized to a British photographer after removing her photo of a gay couple kissing, saying the post was removed “in error.” London photographer Stella Asia Consonni uploaded photos of couples as part of an art series on modern relationships, published in i-D magazine. After posting the photo, Instagram removed it, sparking public backlash. … Continued

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China Claims to Have a Real-Deal Laser Gun That Inflicts ‘Instant Carbonization’ of Human Skin 

As the U.S. prepares for war in space, China’s bringing the space war home. Its ZKZM-500 laser assault rifle is reportedly capable of hitting a target from a kilometer away, igniting flammable objects, and burning through human skin. And it’s ready for production, the researchers behind the project claim. A weapon that fires a destructive … Continued

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All Signs Point to a Late August Release for Nvidia’s New GTX 1180 GPU

Even though Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang told journalists at Computex that new GPU’s wouldn’t be available for “a long time,” new rumors and leaks indicate that the upcoming Nvidia GTX 1180 could get announced much sooner, possibly as early as late August at Gamescom in Germany. Originally, Nvidia was scheduled to showcase what people expected … Continued

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How the New Android Messages Actually Compares to iMessage

Google’s messaging options are a mess, and it just rolled out a new tool to muddy the waters even further: Android Messages, but on the web. It gives you access to your Android SMS chats through a web browser, and lets you send and receive messages. So does it make life any easier for those … Continued

Tech NewsGiz Asks

How Far Can You Get Away From Technology?

Everyone, from time to time—or at every single moment of every single day—wishes they could somehow escape technology. It’s not ultimately that fun to be inundated at all hours with the collapse of society, the weekend activities of people you barely knew ten years ago, bad memes, worse TV, etc. You can smash your phone, … Continued

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Judge Awards $5 to ‘Free Speech’ Rally Organizer Because a Woman Cursed at Him

Last summer’s infamous neo-Nazi rally in Charlottesville, Virginia was supposedly about “free speech.” But that claim was always ridiculous. The latest evidence? Jason Kessler, one of the organizers of the rally, sued a woman for swearing at him. And a judge in Charlottesville has now awarded Kessler $5. Kessler sued Donna Gasapo for $500 because … Continued

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Doubts About Amazon Prime, Westworld Finale, and Nazi UFO: Best Gizmodo Stories of the Week

Do you ever get that feeling that someone is pulling a fast one on you? That’s the feeling we’re starting to get with Amazon Prime, the flagship service that provides two-day shipping and all sorts of other perks…but quietly keeps trickling up in price. At what point do you consider dropping a service that you’ve … Continued

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Amazon’s PillPack Deal Could Give It Reams of Users’ Private Medical Data

E-commerce giant Amazon wiped out nearly $15 billion in value from Walgreens, CVS, and Rite Aid this week when it announced a nearly $1 billion deal to acquire PillPack, an online prescription service, sending the competition scrambling for cover. It’s unclear just how Amazon plans on integrating PillPack into the rest of its offerings, with … Continued

Tech NewsFacebook

Facebook Discloses More Data Sharing Partnerships As the Hits Just Keep Coming

It’s a day of the week, so that means it’s time for more revelations about Facebook’s sharing habits that it hadn’t previously revealed to users. In the latest entry in the endless attempt at retroactive transparency, Facebook revealed to Congress that it shared data with 52 hardware and software companies, including some firms headquartered in … Continued

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AT&T Is Jacking Up the Price of Its DirecTV Now Streaming Service By $5 a Month

AT&T is increasing the price of DirecTV Now, its subscription streaming service, by $5 a month effective August, Cordcutters News, CordCutters and Engadget reported this weekend. That brings the price of the package to $40 per month for basic service and $75 per month for extended offerings. In a statement to the two sites, AT&T … Continued

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Huh, MoviePass Leadership Sure Seems Shady

MoviePass has been operating for nearly a full year on its too-good-to-be-true premise of offering essentially unlimited movie passes to subscribers for just $9.99 per month. It’s the monorail and, according to a report from the Miami Herald, company CEO Ted Farnsworth sure seems like a dead ringer for Lyle Lanley. Farnsworth, the head of … Continued

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The EPA’s Top Ethics Official Is Urging More Investigations Into Scott Pruitt

Environmental Protection Agency chief Scott Pruitt is under 13 concurrent federal investigations into everything from his exorbitant 24/7 security detail and habit of backstabbing whistleblowing subordinates to pricey plane tickets and cozy relationships with lobbyists. But apparently that’s not enough for the EPA’s principal deputy general counsel and chief ethics officer Kevin Minoli, who the New … Continued

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Convicted ‘Free Tablet’ Fraudster Ordered to Pay Up $2.8 Million to Victims

New York officials announced the conviction and sentencing of Nevada-based Sungame Corporation and its CEO Neil Chandran for grand larceny and securities fraud, saying the fraudsters would be forced to pay up $2.8 million to redress hundreds of people the company scammed with promises of free 3D tablets or go to jail. Chandran, who was … Continued

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A Canadian Restaurant Refused to Serve a Man Wearing a MAGA Hat and Now Its Yelp Score is Ruined

Because we’ve apparently learned nothing and are doomed to relive the same news cycle over and over, Yelp has once again become the home for airing political grievances. This time, a Canadian restaurant was made the target of negative reviews after the manager asked a man in a “Make America Great Again” hat to leave. … Continued

Tech NewsPrivacy and Security

US Intel Officials Allege North Korea Is Still Enriching Uranium After Trump-Kim Summit

Shocker: It turns out that President Donald Trump was perhaps not really being all that honest when he walked out of a summit with North Korean strongman Kim Jong Un this month and declared “There is no longer a nuclear threat from North Korea.” Per Reuters and NBC News, US intelligence officials (albeit ones speaking … Continued

Tech NewsPrivacy and Security

Smart Home Security Camera Sends Footage to Wrong Person, Is Maybe Not So Smart After All

Internet-connected devices are known for having their fair share of security issues—especially when it comes to cameras. But here’s a new one: the BBC reported this week that a smart home security camera started sending video clips to the wrong person. The BBC first caught wind of the problem shortly after one of its employees … Continued