Category Archives: Blog

For the second day in a row, Republican and Democratic lawmakers slammed Facebook over its digital currency, Libra. 

Members of the House Committee on Financial Services backed the message of their Senate colleagues from yesterday: they don’t trust Facebook.

Rep. Maxine Waters opened the hearing by blasting Facebook’s “pattern of failing to keep consumer data private on a scale similar to Equifax” and said that if Libra launches, “the company and its partners will yield immense economic power that could destabilize currencies.”

Libra is a blockchain-based digital currency, or cryptocurrency, which Facebook formally announced last month. It’s overseen by a non-profit headquartered in Switzerland, the Libra Association, of which Facebook is a member. The social media giant also created a subsidiary group, Calibra, for its own Libra-related products. Read more…

More about Facebook, Library, Cryptocurrency, Congressional Hearing, and Calibra

There’s a whole lot of talk about aliens on the internet right now, and it’s even driving people to go hunting for extraterrestrials on the web’s biggest adult video website, Pornhub.

In wake of the viral Facebook event about storming Area 51 began making the rounds earlier in July, searches for both Area 51 and aliens have spiked on Pornhub, according to the site’s internal analytics team.

Since July 12, searches for Area 51 have taken off like a rocket to Mars. Between July 12 and July 16, there have been more than 160,000 total searches with nearly 59,000 searches logged on Tuesday, July 16. Read more…

More about Aliens, Pornhub, Area 51, Culture, and Web Culture

Designed by Emiel Noorlander, the “Automatic Opening Umbrella” was designed so you wouldn’t have to hold an umbrella. Read more…

More about Tech, Mashable Video, Future Blink, Tech, and Climate Environment

The New Lab is an 85,000 sq ft building covering four different floors and over 600 entrepreneurs. It is located in the iconic Brooklyn Navy Yard. Read more…

More about Startups, History, Mashable Video, Buildings Architecture, and Brooklyn

More about Drones, Apollo 11, Moon Landing, Intel Shooting Star, and Tech

TL;DR: This high-end hardside suitcase makes a great carry-on, and you can get it from Amazon today for just $469 — 31% off its suggested retail price.

With Prime Day officially over, Amazon wants to send you off in style.

The retail giant is currently featuring a post-“parade of deals” discount on a carry-on suitcase made by the the luxury travel brand Tumi, marking it down by more than 30% to save you a casual $206. (If you’re planning on putting your Prime Day savings towards a last-minute summer getaway, this is a deal that you maybe, probably shouldn’t miss.)

SEE ALSO: Best carry-on luggage Read more…

More about Travel, Suitcase, Luggage, Carry On Luggage, and Mashable Shopping

The Google Maps app is packed with information about restaurants, bus schedules, and now bike-shares.

Starting Wednesday, the app will show information about bicycle availability at stations in real-time in 24 cities. It will also show how many empty slots there are to drop off a bicycle. New York City CitiBike users have had this feature for the past year. 

Last year, Google Maps started listing Lime availability, and later expanded to include more of the company’s scooter listings. 

More about Google Maps, Bike Sharing, Tech, and Transportation

FaceApp’s trending new aging filter has people comparing AI-aged photos of themselves with their parents’ photos. Using neural networks, the app guesses where you’ll wrinkle, where your hairline will recede to, and what parts of your face will sag over the years. 

Twitter users compared their FaceApp selfies with photos of their actual parents, or posed next to them. For many — most of whom are men — the results are uncanny. 

More about Selfie, Faceapp, Culture, and Web Culture

At a time when technology is wreaking havoc on privacy and phones and laptops have all started to look and feel the same, it’s great to see there’s still an incredible amount of innovation happening, even if it may not be so obvious. Read more…

More about Reviews, Storage, Microsd Card, Sandisk, and Tech

Dragonfly, it seems, is officially dead. Probably. 

The controversial Chinese search engine previously in development by Google that raised privacy, censorship, and human rights concerns is finally, officially, no more — at least according to Karan Bhatia, Google’s vice president of global government affairs and public policy.

In a July 16 congressional hearing, Bhatia assured Senator Josh Hawley that the project is over. 

“Is [Project Dragonfly] active right now?” asked Hawley. 

“It’s not, Senator,” replied Bhatia. “We have terminated that.” 

This unequivocal response is a departure from previous couched statements by Google executives regarding Dragonfly’s status. For example, in December, chief executive Sundar Pichai told Congress that “right now there are no plans for us to launch a search product in China.”  Read more…

More about Google, Privacy, Dragonfly, Tech, and Big Tech Companies