Category Archives: Blog

Better mind your Ps and Qs, because daddy Gates is watching. 

Microsoft is updating its terms of service on May 1, and the news rules just so happen to explicitly prohibit the use of “offensive language” on its various platforms. Those platforms include Skype and Xbox Live.

That’s right, Microsoft is banning profanity on Xbox Live. Let that one sink in. 

But it gets even weirder. The full lists prohibits all kinds of things, including nudity. 

“By agreeing to these Terms, you’re agreeing that, when using the Services, you will follow these rules,” explains the new code of conduct. “Don’t publicly display or use the Services to share inappropriate content or material (involving, for example, nudity, bestiality, pornography, offensive language, graphic violence, or criminal activity).” Read more…

More about Microsoft, Skype, Xbox Live, Tech, and Big Tech Companies

Uber’s self-driving car program seems doomed — at least in two states where it was testing its driverless technology.

Following last week’s fatal crash in the Phoenix area, the company suspended all its programs in San Francisco, Pittsburgh, Toronto, and Arizona. This week, any future autonomous testing in Arizona was suspended indefinitely.

Now, a letter from the California Department of Motor Vehicles to Uber’s autonomous vehicle program shows that the company has decided not to renew its testing permit. Its current permit will expire this weekend on March 31.  Read more…

More about Uber, California, Autonomous Vehicles, Self Driving Cars, and Dmv

Robert Downey Jr. just revealed the stars joining him in the upcoming The Voyage of Doctor Dolittle. The sheer amount of talent is overwhelming, but the fact that they’ll all be voicing animals — and imagining these Oscar-nominated performers as animals — is the true joy.

The award-winning and nominated actors include: Emma Thompson (Sense and Sensibility) as a parrot, Rami Malek (Mr. Robot) as a gorilla, Octavia Spencer (Hidden Figures, The Shape of Water) as a duck, Ralph Fiennes (The Grand Budapest Hotel) as a tiger, Kumail Nanjiani (The Big Sick) as an ostrich, and Carmen Ejogo (Selma) as a lioness. Read more…

More about Entertainment, Octavia Spencer, Selena Gomez, Robert Downey Jr., and Entertainment

Sure, you’ve heard of snakes swallowing possums, hyenas, and uh, other snakes. 

They’re at least kinda digestible, unlike a slipper. A man from the Queensland town of Haigslea in Australia had placed by his bed last Tuesday as he went to sleep, only to find one of them missing in the morning.

The snake, with slipper inside, was found on Friday and was subsequently removed by N&S Snake Catcher, who posted the video on Facebook.

Sally Hill, who helped catch the snake with her partner Norman, told ABC News about her theory as to why the reptile devoured the strange item. Read more…

More about Australia, Animals, Snake, Python, and Culture

An Uber driver messed up big time while picking up passengers in San Francisco.

Instead of leaving a grocery store parking lot, you know, through a normal exit, the driver took the stairs.

Stairs are lauded as a healthy alternative to elevators or escalators, but in this case this was the wrong choice. Naturally, after making the supremely embarrassing move, the first thing the Uber driver did was blame Uber’s navigation system for leading the car down the pedestrian stairway. 

I’ve driven in this particular Safeway parking lot at the busy intersection of Church and Market streets many times, and it’s admittedly unclear how to get out of the lot, but it’s not drive-down-a-staircase unclear. Read more…

More about Uber, Gps, Navigation, Tech, and Transportation

Aly Raisman is tired of victim-shaming over clothing choices. 

The U.S. Olympic gymnast tweeted on Sunday that “Leotards r not the problem,” calling out critics of the gymnastics uniform for victim-shaming and “implying survivors should feel it’s their fault.” 

Raisman, an outspoken activist for survivors of sexual assault, also called out enablers of abuse against children and young people, saying, “The real problem is the pedophiles out there and the adults who enable them.”

More about Olympics, Sexual Assault, Sexual Abuse, Aly Raisman, and Usa Gymnastics

After a self-driving Uber crashed and killed a woman walking her bike across a Tempe, Arizona, road last week, the technology behind autonomous vehicles has been questioned and scrutinized.

Intel, the company behind the driver-assistance software Mobileye — which is used in certain autonomous cars, like Waymo, but not in Uber — took the footage Tempe police released from the crash and ran their software through the fatal incident. 

Mobileye CEO and CFO Amnon Shashua wrote in a editorial Monday that “despite the suboptimal conditions, where much of the high dynamic range data that would be present in the actual scene was likely lost, clear detection was achieved approximately one second before impact.”  Read more…

More about Uber, Intel, Autonomous Vehicles, Self Driving Cars, and Mobileye

Reddit Gold is done with bitcoin.

The premium version of the online forum Reddit used to let you pay for an upgraded membership with the cryptocurrency, bitcoin. But in the past few days it looks like the ad-free version of the site isn’t as gung-ho on the digital coin as it once was.

When I went to sign up Monday for a month of Reddit Gold I was given two payment options: PayPal or credit card.

A conversation two years ago in the “goldbenefits” sub-reddit conversation shows that bitcoin was an option at one point. Read more…

More about Reddit, Bitcoin, Cryptocurrency, Tech, and Consumer Tech

Apple wants to rule classrooms with the iPad, but Google is clearly not going to let that happen.

Ahead of Apple’s education-focused event on Tuesday, where it will likely debut a cheaper iPad, Acer has announced its own low-cost tablet, and it’s the first one to run Chrome OS.

Acer’s Chromebook Tab 10 is clearly a shot aimed directly at Apple. At $329, the tablet offers mostly comparable specs and has one thing Apple’s equally priced iPad doesn’t: a built-in stylus.

• 9.7-inch (2,048 x 1,536 resolution) IPS display

• 3999 RockChip processor

• 4GB of RAM

• 32GB of storage (expandable via microSD card slot)

• Up to 9 hours of battery life

• 5-megapixel rear camera

• 2-megapixel front-facing camera

• Stereo speakers Read more…

More about Google, Tablets, Education, Acer, and Chrome Os

Antibiotics made their big debut during World War II, when the U.Spumped out increasingly potent doses of penicillin to successfully combat bacterial infections in troops.

These antibacterial drugs have been hugely effective in the seven decades since, but there’s a consequence: The more that antibiotics are consumed, the more resistant infectious bugs become to these drugs, possibly giving rise to “superbugs” that are resistant to known treatments.  

Today, the problem is global and on the rise, according to a study published Monday in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.  Read more…

More about Science, Health, Public Health, Antibiotics, and Antibiotic Resistance