Author Archives: Carol Edwards

The Volkswagen ID. Buggy is cute, doorless (and roofless!), and gives off strong beach vibes. But the dune buggy-inspired concept car is more than its looks. It’s about the possibilities of an electric vehicle. See, it’s not just SUVs and sedans that can get the electric treatment.

After making its debut earlier this year at the Geneva Motor Show, the ID. Buggy was just at Monterey Car Week to show what it can do off the showroom floor. The car kept busy hitting the beach and sand dunes of the California coast this week, not just sitting pretty with fancy design ideas on display. This is a driveable car. Even if it isn’t likely to ever be produced — at least for the masses — it shows “the versatility of the electric platform,” as VW spokesperson Jochen Tekotte said at the beach before a test drive. Read more…

More about Electric Vehicles, Volkswagen, Concept Car, Tech, and Transportation

It shouldn’t be news to any of us now that some parts of the internet…are bad. Even a lot of the good parts are being used by bad people, or for bad purposes like datamining and invasions of privacy without user consent.

That’s the kind of hard-hitting ethical quandary you probably wouldn’t expect from Silicon Valley, but the teaser for the forthcoming season of HBO’s tech startup satire promises to at least touch upon big names like Google and Amazon, even if it’s just for a scathing joke (what is Amazon, anyway?). 

The final season of Silicon Valley begins Oct. 27 on HBO. Read more…

More about Tech, Entertainment, Television, Silicon Valley, and Entertainment

Trump wants to buy Greenland, and the internet isn’t holding back on the memes.

The president has “repeatedly expressed interest” in buying the island, the Wall Street Journal reports, and has asked advisers about whether the United States can buy the self-ruling part of the Kingdom of Denmark. People close to the discussions also told the Wall Street Journal that Trump has asked White House counsel to “look into the idea.” 

Even if the U.Scould feasibly “buy” Greenland, Greenland itself brushed it off. In a statement, its foreign ministry affirmed that the island isn’t for sale. 

“Greenland is rich in valuable resources such as minerals, the purest water and ice, fish stocks, seafood, renewable energy, and is a new frontier for adventure tourism,” the foreign ministry said. “We’re open for business, not for sale.”  Read more…

More about Twitter, Trump, Greenland, Culture, and Web Culture

YouTuber Malinda Herman has a channel full of delightful song covers, many of which she sings to her two adoring dogs and extremely vocal cat. But the best one of all is perhaps her take on Lobo’s “I’d Love You to Want Me,” which is peppered with enthusiastic meows and makes her chihuahua so sleepy that he cuddles up to the guitar.

Are you crying? I am crying. Look at his little paws. Look at his little yawns! OK, hear me out: What if we delete all of YouTube except for this channel? I think it could be really good for everyone. Let me know! Read more…

More about Youtube, Dogs, Viral Videos, Culture, and Web Culture

At first glance, the bitter Twitter battle against CVS over birth control pills this week may have convinced you that the pharmacy giant was blocking access to the contraceptive. But like most Twitter scuffles, it’s complicated.

Here’s what’s really happening. 

CVS Caremark, a CVS subsidiary that works with pharmaceutical companies to set prescription pricing for customers of CVS and other pharmacies, has reduced how much it’ll reimburse retailers that only sell one product. One such online startup, Pill Club, mails women birth control in packages filled with other goodies like stickers that say “You are magical” and chocolate. CVS’ move means Pill Club will be reimbursed at a lower rate for customers whose insurance is tied to CVS Caremark, making it so the company can no longer afford to service those people. Read more…

More about Social Good, Birth Control, Cvs, Pill Club, and Social Good

No matter what side of the fence you land on — Apple die-hard or completely loyal to Windows-only tech — there’s always going to be something on sale for you, so let’s focus less on the “which is better” debate, and more on how much money you can save on a laptop or tablet of your choice. 

This weekend, there’s a bunch of great personal devices on sale — from regular laptops, to 2-in-1 computers, to fancy tablets. Some of our favorites this time around are a big discount on the iPad Pro, and a nice deal on the Microsoft Surface Pro, among others. Read more…

More about Tablets, Ipad Pro, Laptops, Microsoft Surface, and Mashable Shopping

Say it with me: Bluetooth is not your friend. 

It turns out that the frustratingly buggy way to pair speakers, printers, and numerous other third-party devices with your smartphone or computer can’t keep a secret. Security researchers this week announced a major vulnerability in the Bluetooth specification that allows hackers to not only listen in on the data being sent between two devices, but clandestinely alter it as well. 

“[An] attacker is able to the listen in on, or change the content of, nearby Bluetooth communication, even between devices that have previously been successfully paired,” the researchers explain.     Read more…

More about Airdrop, Bluetooth, Airpods, Tech, and Cybersecurity

Coined the “monster penguin,” this creature roamed the Earth over 60 million years ago

Read more here. Read more…

More about Science, Animals, Mashable Video, Fossils, and Science

Waiting until Black Friday to a buy a TV has become the thing to do, but we’re proposing that you should have that HDR quality in your home for all of fall.

Forget Hallmark Christmas movies — September and October are the best months on television for fans of horror or classic slasher movies, and those dark scenes are the spookiest when you can actually see who’s lurking in the shadows.

The argument for fall sports in 4K is obvious: Sports fans shouldn’t have to spend the first months of the season unable to decipher where the ball is or what the score says.

Luckily, there are always some hidden gem TV deals scattered across the internet well before holiday sales: Get a 49-inch LG 4K TV for $377 (that’s bougie dorm life, if we’ve ever heard it), a 65-inch Vizio P-Series Quantum TV for $999.99, or a 75-inch Sony 4K TV for less than $1,500 plus a free $400 Dell gift card. Read more…

More about Lg, Vizio, Mashable Shopping, 4k Tvs, and Tech

Sometimes the internet takes a break from being on fire and churns out something good. This week, a woman was able to thank the man who gave her a bike when she was a five-year-old refugee, with the help of Twitter’s supreme tracking abilities. 

As Saddam Hussein began targeting Kurdish communities in the 1990s, Mevan Babakar and her family fled Iraq and moved to Turkey, Azerbaijan, Russia, and eventually to a city called Zwolle in the Netherlands. Babakar and her mother later settled down in London. 

During her stay in Zwolle, a kind man who worked at a refugee camp gifted her a bike “out of the kindness of his own heart.”  Read more…

More about Twitter, Refugees, Wholesome, Culture, and Web Culture