Author Archives: Carol Edwards

Immediately after Kanye West revealed his terrible iPhone passcode to the world, he said that Apple should build Trump the iPlane1. 

“I brought a GIF with me right here,” West said in the Oval Office on Thursday during a meeting as he turned his phone over to the president. “This right here is the iPlane 1. It’s a hydrogen-powered airplane, and this is what our president should be flying in. We’re going to have Apple, an American company, work on this plane.”

More about Apple, Politics, Kanye West, Donald Trump, and Culture

I never want to understand the kind of fear that the families of NASA astronaut Nick Hague and Russian cosmonaut Alexey Ovchinin experienced in the wee hours of Thursday morning. 

Both crewmembers were aboard a Russian-made Soyuz rocket bound for a six-month stay on the International Space Station when their rocket malfunctioned, forcing an abort of the mission and sending Hague and Ovchinin on an extreme ride back to Earth within the crew capsule. 

Hague and Ovchinin are safely back on Earth after the abort, during which they likely experienced the force of seven times Earth’s gravity. 

More about Space, Nasa, Science, International Space Station, and Rockets

Wakanda forever. 

The highly-anticipated sequel to Marvel’s record-shattering box office success Black Panther has been in the works for some time. But it wasn’t until this afternoon that we officially learned director and writer Ryan Coogler would return to helm the follow-up project. 

According to The Hollywood Reporter, Coogler “quietly closed a deal to write and direct the sequel” a few months ago, an unsurprising move considering the first film’s success. 

The report adds: “Sources say the plan at this stage is for Coogler to write next year with an eye to start production in either late 2019 or early 2020.” This timeline has not yet been confirmed by Marvel Studios, but is in line with industry speculation.  Read more…

More about Marvel, Ryan Coogler, Marvel Cinematic Universe, Black Panther 2, and Entertainment

President Trump has entertained plenty of deeply dangerous and upsetting conspiracy theories. This week’s had to be one of his dumbest.

On Thursday, Hillary Clinton spoke out on Twitter about Donald’s latest theory: that she colluded with the Russians in the 2016 campaign.

“There was collusion between Hillary, the Democrats and Russia,” Trump said at a rally on Wednesday. “There was a lot of collusion with them and Russia and lots of other people.”

It takes a lot of, shall we say, imagination to allege that Clinton colluded with the Russians. Was she conspiring with the Russians to ensure she lost the presidency and the Democrats lose both houses? Read more…

More about Watercooler, Hillary Clinton, Collusion, Culture, and Politics

Hurricane Michael was one of the most powerful hurricanes to hit the continental U.S. in almost 50 years, according to the Associated Press. 

The hurricane made landfall in Mexico Beach, Florida, as a Category 4 storm on Wednesday and then weakened as it moved through Georgia. Now designated a tropical storm, Michael is headed toward North and South Carolina, which were both recently devastated by Hurricane Florence.

Although the full scope of the damage is still being evaluated, preliminary reports have included power outages, uprooted trees, flooding, and demolished homes. At least six people have died as a result of the hurricane. CoreLogic, a financial data company, estimates insured storm losses could reach $4.5 billion.  Read more…

More about Disaster Relief, Disaster Recovery, Hurricane Relief, Hurricane Michael, and Social Good

Razer’s premier gaming laptop is getting a big update.

Less than six months after releasing the Blade 15, Razer is already rolling out an update to its gaming laptop line with its new Blade 15 Dual Storage edition. 

If you couldn’t tell from its name, the Razer Blade 15 Dual Storage edition comes with two drives, a smaller SSD for performance and a larger hard drive for capacity. The Blade 15 Dual Storage edition is a little bit thicker than the earlier Blade 15 models because of this additional 2.5-inch drive, but Razer took advantage of the extra space by adding in a gigabit Ethernet port to improve connectivity. For a gaming laptop especially, this is more than an acceptable tradeoff.  Read more…

More about Gaming, Gaming Laptop, Razer, Tech, and Gaming

Almost a year after releasing its first gaming-focused smartphone, Razer is throwing its hat back into the arena. Behold: the Razer Phone 2.

For the uninitiated, Razer is a powerhouse in the game peripheral market, and the company’s second smartphone cements its place as an industry leader. The Razer Phone 2 is built specifically for people who love video games and want to do more of it on a touchscreen — namely with titles like Fortnite or PUBG Mobile.

To handle this, the new Razer Phone, which I got a chance to try out for a few minutes, is said to perform 30 percent better than the previous generation thanks to its Qualcomm 845 Snapdragon processor and Adreno 630 GPU.  Read more…

More about Razer, Razer Phone, Tech, and Consumer Tech

Elon Musk denied he’ll be replaced by James Murdoch as Tesla’s chairman, an alleged shakeup that was the subject of rumors on Wednesday.

Murdoch, who’s due to end his stint as 21st Century Fox’s CEO, was named in a Financial Times report as the lead candidate to succeed Musk, according to two sources who spoke with the newspaper.

Musk remarked simply that the report was “incorrect” on Twitter.

The younger son of media mogul Rupert, Murdoch also serves as a director on Tesla’s board, where he has done so since 2017. Read more…

More about Business, Transportation, Tesla, Elon Musk, and Big Tech Companies

Local Facebook really is something else. Here’s the saga of the barefoot runner and “I Love NE Minneapolis.” You might want to sit down for this. 

An irate “competitive barefoot runner” took to his neighborhood Facebook group to complain about the abundance of acorns littering the sidewalks. 

“This makes my training sessions very difficult,” he posted. “So this is just a friendly reminder to please keep your sidewalks clear of any acorns or other debris that might injure those whom are active members of the barefoot running community, including myself.”  Read more…

More about Facebook, Funny, Viral, Culture, and Web Culture

Google thinks your crypto is a joke.  

The search and advertising giant released a new tool on Tuesday known as Call Screen, which helps Pixel owners screen unwanted calls. In a seemingly out of place move, the company used the product’s announcement as an opportunity to dunk on cryptocurrency. 

To promote the feature, Google released a short video starring The Daily Show’s Dulcé Sloan and Ronny Chieng. Meant to demo Call Screen in action, the minute-long ad depicts the two comedians — dressed as Google employees — screening calls from a scammer and the power company.  Read more…

More about Google, Bitcoin, Cryptocurrency, Call Screen, and Tech