Author Archives: Carol Edwards

TL;DR: Get the powerful Microsoft Surface Book 2 2-in-1 laptop on sale for $1,399. It’s usually priced at $1,999, so you’ll be saving 30%. 

A lot of 2-in-1 products get a bad rap but let’s face it, a shampoo just shouldn’t be able to double as a body wash and that’s that. But in the wild world of multi-purpose items, the 2-in-1 laptop stands out as a special exception that really does perform. Especially in the case of the Microsoft Surface Book 2, 13.5-inch 2-in-1 laptop. 

Right now, you can head to the PC Mag Shop (which is owned by Mashable’s publisher, Ziff Davis) to get the Microsoft Surface Book 2 13.5-inch 2-in-1 laptop on sale for $1,399. By comparison, that’s $600 less than it’s listed online directly through Microsoft and only $100 more than the price of the less-powerful, previous i5 model.  Read more…

More about Tablet, Laptop, Surface, Mashable Shopping, and Shopping Pcmag

When millennials head home, a lot of them are greeted with a pile of newspaper clippings. 

Others receive highlighted articles sent in the mail, usually from grandparents or old-school parents.  The more “with it” parents snap a photo of articles and email or text that over. And yes, some parents have figured out how to email or text over a link to a news story.

With so many options to share a news story (using the share buttons on a website, copying and pasting links into texts, email, or a messaging app, or use your smartphone’s built-in share options) it’s fascinating that a strong showing of parents are resistant to new (and arguably easier) ways to share content. Read more…

More about News, Email, Sharing, Links, and Tech

Mashable bites into a creamy, nutty, gooey, and sometimes stinky world during our first-ever Cheese Week.

Black people don’t mess around when it comes to macaroni and cheese. The great African-American culinary tradition demands excellence in all aspects of its existence. Bad macaroni — dry, crunchy, lacking smoothness and squelch — is an abomination, a stain on the institution of soul food. Good macaroni is a point of pride. Many mac and cheese recipes, like the one in my family, are passed down from grandmothers who created the standard upon which all iterations of the dish are compared, and the person responsible for keeping that recipe alive is someone I call the Keeper of the Mac.  Read more…

More about Cheese, Mac And Cheese, Cheese Week, Culture, and Food

Rats, rodents, maggots, crime. These words have literal meanings, but when they’re used to describe specific places or groups, they take on something more.

It’s something CNN anchor Victor Blackwell pointed out in a moving segment about Trump’s racist use of the word “infested” in tweets — and also something that Twitter explicitly prohibits in its rules against “dehumanizing language.” 

It’s no secret that Trump walks all over Twitter’s rules against racist verbal attacks — rules that Twitter neglects to enforce. But it’s important to show the many ways the president normalizes creeping, dangerous discrimination, and Twitter’s failure to stop him. Read more…

More about Twitter, Racism, Trump, Tech, and Politics

Cryptocurrency might be a challenge to the primacy of the U.S. dollar, but that’s not stopping the Internal Revenue Service from wanting a piece of the action.

The IRS announced Friday that it was sending letters to 10,000 cryptocurrency holders informing them that they needed to report, and pay taxes on, their crypto transactions and capital gains.

“Taxpayers should take these letters very seriously by reviewing their tax filings and when appropriate, amend past returns and pay back taxes, interest and penalties,” Chuck Rettig, IRS Commissioner, said in a statement. “The IRS is expanding our efforts involving virtual currency, including increased use of data analytics. We are focused on enforcing the law and helping taxpayers fully understand and meet their obligations.” Read more…

More about Taxes, Libra, Cryptocurrency, Trump Tweets, and Tech

Apple’s not done releasing new products in 2019.

New iPhones — bulbous square camera bump and all — are expected in September. The new Mac Pro will also be coming the same month. A 16-inch MacBook Pro with all-new keyboard are rumored for the fall. And now, there’s word new iPads are coming.

Two regulatory entries Apple filed with the Eurasian Economic Commission (a now-frequent source of confirmation for unreleased products) suggest new iPads will likely be released in the fall, according to AppleInsider.

The specific device filings reveal expected model numbers and nothing else. Which means we have no information on whether the filings are referring to a new iPad, iPad Air, iPad mini, or iPad Pro. Read more…

More about Apple, Ipad, Tablets, Ipad Pro, and Rumors

Donald Trump started off his Saturday morning with a mean-spirited and racist attack on Congressman Elijah Cummings and the West Baltimore district he represents. CNN’s Victor Blackwell wasn’t having it.

The president singled out Cummings — who notably chairs the House Committee on Oversight and Reform, one of several investigating Trump’s conduct — in a string of morning tweets. He called the Congressman “a brutal bully” and labeled his district as a “rat and rodent infested mess” where “no human being would want to live[.]”

Even for a president who seems to savor stepping over the line, the harsh and offensive language Trump leveled at an American city where actual Americans live — not to mention the Congressman who represents them — struck a nerve. Nowhere was this more evident than on CNN. Read more…

More about Baltimore, Racism, Donald Trump, Elijah Cummings, and Culture

Cat burglars? Out. Bear burglars? In.

One sneaky bear proved the lengths to which its kind would go to get some sweet sweet noms. A Colorado couple affixed a bird feeder to their backyard shed, in a kind move for birds. They knew that bears were prevalent in their area, so they also attached a bell to the feeder in the hopes that the noise would dissuade any non-bird creatures looking to feed. 

The bell was not enough. The couple (seemingly from safely within their home) captured one bear’s feats on film, in which it performs some seriously impressive acrobatics to get its big ol’ paws on that bird food.  Read more…

More about Bears, Culture, and Animals

News alert: your Siri voice recordings may not be entirely private.

According to The Guardian, Apple hires contractors to listen to Siri recordings in order to improve the accuracy and quality of the voice assistant.

These contractors “regularly hear confidential medical information, drug deals, and recordings of couples having sex, as part of their job providing quality control, or ‘grading,'” the report claims.

Like Amazon and Google, both of which also employ humans to review some recordings from their respective Alexa and Assistant, Apple doesn’t disclose that real people review Siri recordings, either.  Read more…

More about Apple, Privacy, Siri, Voice Assistants, and Tech

It might be time to accept that the city of Las Vegas is now lost to us humans. It belongs to the grasshoppers now.

Swarms of the winged insect have overrun the Nevada city in the past week, making parts of Sin City look like they’ve been inflicted with a Biblical plague. But these aren’t locusts; they’re desert-native pallid-winged grasshoppers, and they’re behaving normally.

That’s what Nevada’s state entomologist Jeff Knight told CNN. The insect’s numbers grow following wet winters and springs, and those increased numbers are in evidence when they make their annual migration. 

“We’ll have flights about this time of the year, migrations, and they’ll move northward,” Knight said. Read more…

More about Las Vegas, Grasshoppers, Culture, Animals, and Web Culture