Boring is the new sexy in Silicon Valley. As the coronavirus crisis has turned America upside down, it has become in vogue to just do the basic things right. Quantum computing may come eventually, and everyone still wants a moonshot. But for now, people are just asking for their video conferences to work and their…
In 2018, Silicon Valley, like Hamlet’s engineer, was hoist with its own petard. Citizens were panicking about data privacy, researchers were sounding alarms about artificial intelligence, and even industry stakeholders rebelled against app addiction. Policymakers, meanwhile, seemed to take a renewed interest in breaking up big tech, as a string of congressional hearings put CEOs…
A comet strikes New York City, killing almost everyone in sight. A survivor named Jim Davis, a Black man, searches the rubble for others, eventually finding and rescuing a white woman named Julia. They share their shock and grief, soon realizing they might be two of the only remaining people on Earth. The circumstances force…
Since the pandemic began, the threat of a second, deadlier wave of coronavirus has captured the public imagination. The fear, which provokes viral Facebook posts and influences government strategy, is that this pandemic will follow a trajectory similar to that of the 1918 Spanish flu. Two-thirds of the 50 million who died would do so…
I’ll confess. Despite having some serious reservations about the company, I am a fan of Amazon’s cheap, no-frills Fire tablets.Sure, they’re hamstrung by Amazon’s limited Appstore offerings, the slow Silk web browser, and they push Amazon content as if the AOL business model is still viable. But these days Fire tablets are both affordable and…
If someone wants to disrupt a website or online service—or take it down altogether—a popular method is to wallop it with a massive flood of junk traffic or bogus requests. These so-called distributed denial of service attacks have for years been a fact of life on the internet. But a recent spate of major campaigns…
Let’s-a-go! by Liam Doolan 6 hours agoThis year is Mario’s 35th anniversary, and as you might have heard, there’s a rumour that Nintendo is remastering most of his back-catalogue on Switch. Apart from this, LEGO is joining in on the celebration with appropriately-themed sets, and now, Hasbro will be releasing Super Mario Monopoly and Jenga.…
A hacker allegedly behind a spate of Twitter account hacks on Wednesday gained access to a Twitter “admin” tool on the company’s network that allowed them to hijack high-profile Twitter accounts to spread a cryptocurrency scam, according to a person with direct knowledge of the incident. The account hijacks hit some of the most prominent…
Life after Nintendo by Liam Doolan 8 hours agoThe former Nintendo of America president Reggie Fils-Aimé really isn’t slowing down. After joining Spin Master’s Board of Directors in May, he’s now signed on with the Los Angeles-based publisher Rogue Games, as a strategic advisor to the board of directors. @Rogue_Co Today we welcome @Reggie, former…
Long after the rest of my family is in bed, I tear through New England beach romance novels about people with names like Hobby or Cash, who get their hearts broken, eat truffle breadsticks, and dry their whale shorts on clotheslines. Luckily, these books are free—I’ve been downloading one every few days from my local…
