Category Archives: Blog

Your confusion would be totally understandable. 

A host of Pixel smartphone owners found themselves with small mystery on their hands earlier this week, after they noticed that the battery-saver feature on their phones had randomly engaged — despite the phones having almost full charges. Who, or what, was to blame? A glitch? Perhaps a forgotten setting, toggled on long ago?

Nope. It would, in fact, be Google — remotely changing settings on people’s phones in the background with no notification or warning. And oh yeah, Google didn’t even mean to. 

More about Google, Pixel, Google Pixel, Tech, and Big Tech Companies

Terry Crews has accepted an apology from Adam Venit.

On Friday, Crews posted the apology letter he received from former William Morris Endeavor agent, the man who Crews said sexually assaulted him at an industry function in 2016. The allegations first surfaced when Crews wrote about it last fall in the wake of Harvey Weinstein’s fall and the breakout of the #MeToo movement. 

More about Terry Crews, Metoo, Adam Venit, Entertainment, and Celebrities

It seems like it’s getting harder these days to hide the fact that you’re surreptitiously monitoring left-wing political activists. And accidentally tweeting proof of that fact sure doesn’t make it any easier. 

Massachusetts state police are dealing with that reality this week after a Twitter slip-up revealed that they were keeping tabs on a number of political groups in the area. And, surprise, it was anti-Trump and anti police-brutality groups that are under the cops’ watchful eyes.

Helpfully, The Guardian recaps what went down. While tweeting a warning to residents potentially affected by the tragic gas explosions rocking the Boston suburbs this past week, the state police included a photo of a map of other areas that might require evacuation.  Read more…

More about Twitter, Police, Tech, and Activism

While Florence is, as of 12:00 p.m. ET on Saturday, now “just” a tropical storm, it has still ripped the Carolina coast with heavy winds and record-breaking rainfall, causing widespread damage for humans and wildlife alike. 

Photos and videos from around the region, and particularly North Carolina, showed the power that Florence contained as it came ashore, leading to rescues across the area.

More about Flooding, Rescues, Florence, Hurricane Florence, and New Bern

Apple and Facebook are not friends. 

We’ve seen the beef between the two Silicon Valley giants play out over the course of the past year, with Apple CEO Tim Cook making derisive comments about Facebook’s profiling of users, only to have Mark Zuckerberg attempt a comeback. But the war of words has escalated to action.

Starting Tuesday, reports the Associated Press, Apple’s Safari browser will update to automatically block certain types of cookies that Facebook relies on to track users as they move across the web. While this added protection will initially be limited to the iPad and iPhone, those who prefer to browse on their Macs won’t have to wait long — specifically, they’ll only have to wait one additional week.  Read more…

More about Facebook, Apple, Privacy, Safari, and Tech

As the remnants of what was once Hurricane Florence continues spinning inland, dropping massive amounts of rain and causing damage and widespread flooding, stories of survival are beginning to emerge from the Carolina coast. Including that of a kitten who is literally a “Survivor.”

It all began with this photo from Charlotte Observer reporter Andrew Carter on Friday evening, showing Robert Simmons, Jr. of New Bern, North Carolina being rescued with his kitten. 

The kitten’s name? “Survivor.”

More about Flooding, North Carolina, Hurricane Florence, Hurricane Rescue, and New Bern

You want to know what real power looks like? Walking up to the President of the United States and calling him an asshole.

During the era of Donald Trump, sure, saying something like that could go very badly. But back in 2012, when politics was less of a bloodsport and President Barack Obama still lived in the White House, Anna Kendrick didn’t just get away with it — she got the president laughing hysterically.

“I called him an asshole and scolded him for not knowing enough about the 50 states,” Kendrick told Stephen Colbert during a Friday appearance on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert.  Read more…

More about Celebrities, Culture, Barack Obama, Anna Kendrick, and Culture

Get ready for a new alert coming straight to your phone, this time from the president himself.

On the afternoon of Thursday, Sept. 20, FEMA will send two alerts to cell phones across the nation, both of them tests of its Integrated Public Alert and Warning System (IPAWS). At 2:18 p.m. ET, there will be a test of the Emergency Alert System (EAS) which will be followed at 2:20 p.m. ET by the first ever national test of the Wireless Emergency Alert (WEA) system.

The tests themselves aren’t new but, until now the WEA has been focused regionally. The system launched in 2012 thanks to the Warning, Alert and Response Network (WARN) Act.  Read more…

More about Fcc, Donald Trump, Emergency Alert System, Fema, and Tech

Leave it to the mind behind Carpool Karaoke to bring together a pairing like Good Charlotte and Dr. Phil. 

Yes, in a skit for his Late Late Show, James Corden brought in the television shrink in an attempt to elevate the pop-punk vets from Good Charlotte to “Great Charlotte” and the pairing was… interesting!

Things went even one step further when a (fake) tattooed Phil joined the band on stage for their performance, the kind of partnership that, on paper, seems utterly strange but, in execution, manages, somehow, to work!

Plus, it gives us the greatest Dr. Phil tweet of all time.

More about James Corden, Dr Phil, Good Charlotte, Culture, and Movies Tv Shows

Ah, online dating. If you’ve dated in the past 20 years, you’ve likely encountered one – or all – of the myriad dating sites in some form. 

And as we’ve increasingly moved our lives online, digital dating’s finally shed the stigma it once carried, leaving people free to meet others however they choose.

Julie Spira, dating expert and CEO of cyberdatingexpert.com says it wasn’t always so easy to meet people online. She would know: she’s been helping clients find love online since 1994.

“People didn’t have mobile phones and laptops, and the process was people would go home, log on slowly, see who had written to them and write back,” she says. “The courtship process was a lot slower, so it took quite a while to get from the first interaction to actually going on a date. Plus in those days, there was a stigma associated with online dating. You did not tell people you met your spouse, or partner, or even a date online.” Read more…

More about Dating, Culture, Online Dating, Sex And Relationships, and Dating Sites