Category Archives: Blog

President Donald Trump is not always so great at following directions. 

The Washington Post reports that Trump received a specific warning from his national security advisers on Tuesday which said to not congratulate Russian President Vladimir Putin on his reelection. In fact, the message couldn’t have been more clear.

“DO NOT CONGRATULATE,” it reportedly said in all caps. Trump did it anyway.

Trump spoke with reporters in the Oval Office on the same day and revealed that during a “very good call” with Putin, Trump congratulated him on his reelection. It’s one thing to ignore advice from your advisors, but then to tell a room of reporters is something else. Read more…

More about Memes, Donald Trump, Culture, and Politics

BMW is betting on a better battery.

On Tuesday, the company announced it’s teaming up with Bay Area-based Sila Nanotechnologies (known as Sila Nano), and promised electric vehicle (EV) battery improvements within five years.

Sila Nano wants to improve rechargeable lithium-ion batteries by using silicon instead of graphite. The company and BMW want to incorporate the technology into EVs by 2023. 

Gene Berdichevsky, CEO of Sila Nano, said in a call Tuesday that his tech is “highly scalable” and can be dropped into existing manufacturing facilities — such as a BMW battery factory. Last year the German car company sold 100,000 electric vehicles. Read more…

More about Electric Vehicles, Bmw, Battery, Tech, and Transportation

It turns out even $19 billion isn’t enough to convince people of the merits of Facebook.

In what will surely be another blow to Facebook, WhatsApp cofounder Brian Acton appears to have joined the growing movement to leave the social network.

In a tweet, Acton said that “it is time,” adding the hashtag #deletefacebook.

He didn’t elaborate, but Acton, who previously headed engineering for WhatsApp, is a well-known advocate for privacy and encryption.

The WhatsApp cofounder left the company six months ago, four years after Facebook acquired WhatsApp for $19 billion (the acquisition netted Acton as much as $3 billion from the deal). After leaving, he joined the Signal Foundation, a nonprofit organization that oversees the encrypted messaging app Signal.  Read more…

More about Tech, Facebook, Apps And Software, Whatsapp, and Social Media Companies

Snapchat is having a bit of a moment.

The tech giant, once the undisputed darling of teens and celebrities alike, found itself in hot water yet again last week after an insensitive ad asking users to “slap Rihanna” or “punch Chris Brown” made it way onto its platform. 

It’s yet another time in which Snapchat has found itself in trouble over the past few years. Who could ever forget the offensive Bob Marley filter? Or this one? Or these? 

Snapchat has always been a polarizing product, its new redesign just the most recent piece of evidence. Still, many weren’t at all pleased with the company after its most recent gaff. Neither was Rihanna. Read more…

More about Tech, Snapchat, Kylie Jenner, Rihanna, and Chrissy Teigen

Life comes at you fast.

Ralph Peters, a retired Lt. Col. for the army and until recently a Fox News strategic analyst, decided to leave his post at the station after finally having a moment of clarity. 

Peters’ departure was first reported by BuzzFeed News, which obtained a copy of an email announcing his departure and detailing his reasoning to his colleagues. 

“Today, I feel that Fox News is assaulting our constitutional order and the rule of law, while fostering corrosive and unjustified paranoia among viewers,” Peters wrote in the email. “Over my decade with Fox, I long was proud of the association. Now I am ashamed.” Read more…

More about Fox News, Culture, and Politics

Someday in the not-too-distant future, you’ll be sitting in the dark of a multiplex as a trailer plays for the first big-budget movie rendering of the Donald Trump administration. No doubt there will be laughs, gasps, boos, and intense online debates about whether it’s too soon to turn our collective nightmare into silver-screen fodder.

Until that day, one way movie makers can help us process the present American political crisis is to look at it through the lens of dark historical comedy — just as they did during the Vietnam war. While it was still happening, the only way audiences could acknowledge the absurdity of what we were going through was by reaching backward, viewing satires set in Korea (M*A*S*H*, 1970) and World War II (Catch-22, also 1970.)  Read more…

More about Russia, Trump, Satire, Trump Administration, and Armando Iannucci

When you’re in the self-described business of bribing politicians and influencing elections, it’s perhaps best not to leave a digital paper trail. 

Cambridge Analytica has that all figured out.

According to a London Channel 4 investigation published today, the data analytics and electoral strategy firm that worked with the Trump presidential campaign used an encrypted email service to communicate with clients — and set email to self-delete after two hours. 

So explained now-former Cambridge Analytica CEO Alexander Nix, who was caught on hidden camera telling a journalist posing as a potential client that his company uses an email client called ProtonMail to proactively delete potential evidence.  Read more…

More about Facebook, Cambridge Analytica, Alexander Nix, Tech, and Cybersecurity

Dead phone batteries and dead car batteries are 21st century nightmares, especially if they happen at the same time. (That sounds like the premise of a horror movie. Pay attention, Hollywood!) And don’t even get us started on this happening when it’s like, 20 degrees out. Talk about road trip anxiety.

Luckily, there’s a portable car jump starter that doubles as a power bank for phone charging — and it’s only $30 with a coupon code. You’re welcome.

The Beatit Tech Portable Car Jump Starter and its crocodile clamps sport a 14000mAh capacity battery with 600 amps of peak current and a 12-volt charger. That’s enough to jump a car, motorcycle, truck, or boat — anything with a 5.5 liter gas engine or 4.0 diesel engine. For folks not familiar with car talk, that’s insane. And with that much power, you’d expect the device to be huge — but it’s small enough to fit in the glovebox. Read more…

More about Travel, Cars, Portable Chargers, Mashable Shopping, and Shopping Skimlinks

Some of Marvel’s most popular superheroes are coming to Disneyland.

Disney Parks announced that new Avengers-themed attractions will be coming to three different Disneyland parks around the world: Disneyland Paris, Disneyland Resort in California, and Hong Kong Disneyland. In the coming years, all three parks will be getting new rides and experiences centered around heroes like Spider-Man, Iron Man, Ant-Man, The Wasp, and more.

Disneyland Resort will get a “completely immersive superhero universe,” with experiences centered around Spider-Man and the Avengers planned to open in 2020. Read more…

More about Disney, Marvel, Avengers, Theme Parks, and Disneyland

The calendar may say it’s the first day of spring, but it will seem more like the movie Groundhog Day along the East Coast on Tuesday. The fourth nor’easter in just three weeks will begin to take shape across the Mid-Atlantic, as the first of two waves of low pressure spreads a wintry mix of snow, sleet, and rain from West Virginia to Delaware. 

The main show, though, appears to be set for Tuesday night through Wednesday night, possibly into part of Thursday, from Washington, D.C. northeastward to Boston. Once again, an atmospheric disturbance diving out of Canada and across parts of the U.S. will spawn an intensifying area of low pressure just off the Mid-Atlantic coast.  Read more…

More about Climate, Global Warming, Extreme Weather, Arctic Sea Ice, and Climate Change