Couldn’t the company, like, maybe have done this a tad bit sooner?
Ring, the Amazon-owned manufacturer of home surveillance cameras, announced that it’s implementing a long-overdue step meant to keep its customers’ accounts safe from hackersStarting today, two-factor authentication will be mandatory for all Ring users.
The company has been in the news recently for all kinds of unfortunate reasons. From shady data-sharing practices to an overly cozy relationship with police and simply being altogether too easy to hack, Ring hasn’t had a great past 12 months.
During that time, the Ring brand has taken one hit after another. Today’s effort to lock down customers’ accounts appears to be a belated response to at least some of the problems that are part and parcel of owning and using the device. Read more…
More about Amazon, Ring, 2fa, Tech, and Big Tech Companies
Deepfakes are a technological feat in themselves. Now we can finally see what would have happened if Neo took the blue pill.
Thanks to advancements in AI, deepfakes are becoming easier to create. YouTuber Ctrl Shift Face and Chris Ume collaborated on deepfaking The Matrix and Office Space, imagining what would happen if Neo chose to stay ignorant.
“Remember,” Morpheus tells Neo in this alternate version of The Matrix, “All I’m offering is the truth.”
After choosing the blue pill, rather than the red that would have shown him all the uncomfortable details of his reality, Neo wakes up and continues his mundane life. Instead of an action-packed thriller about waking up, Keanu Reeves now stars in Office Space. Read more…
More about Viral Videos, Deepfakes, Culture, and Web Culture
A few things hold me back from international travel: money and language barriers. I’ve only been outside of the United States once, and it was on a cheap spring break cruise to Ensenada, Mexico. The pool for the whole boat fit a waterslide and a handful of small children. I spent most of my vacation reading and waiting to go on an excursion. I was 12.
When I can bust the piggy bank and make it outside of the States, I don’t want language to get in the way of communicating with locals.
NEXT STORY:
Translation applications are essential to understanding. Even if you have months of Duolingo under your belt, your vocabulary will still be behind native speakers. Get yourself a translation app and suddenly you’ll be way more comfortable navigating communication in a foreign land. Read more…
More about Travel, Culture, Apps And Software, Mashable Shopping, and Carry On
IMAGE: Mashable
BEST TRANSLATION APP OVERALL
TripLingo
This app combines multiple tools for international travel while maintaining a translation focus.
Voice translator: Yes
Text translator: Yes
Photo translator: Yes
Phrasebook: With subscription
Offline translation: Yes
IMAGE: Mashable
BEST TRANSLATION APP FOR SOCIAL MEDIA
Go Translate
Full features require some dough, but options like an integrated keyboard make Go Translate stand out.
Voice translator: Yes
Text translator: Yes
Photo translator: With subscription
Phrasebook: No
Offline translation: With subscription
IMAGE: Mashable
BEST WITH SUBSCRIPTION
iTranslate
The free version is underwhelming, but extensive features are available for $50 a year.
Voice translator: With subscription
Text translator: Yes
Photo translator: With subscription
Phrasebook: Yes
Offline translation: With subscription
IMAGE: Mashable
BEST FREE TRANSLATION APP
Microsoft’s Translator App
The Translator App by Microsoft delivers all the essentials without a subscription.
Voice translator: Yes
Text translator: Yes
Photo translator: Yes
Phrasebook: Yes
Offline translator: Yes
IMAGE: Mashable
BEST TRANSLATION APP FOR APPLE USERS
Translate Now
Augmented reality, Apple Watch compatibility, and an integrated extension are highlights of a feature-dense application.
Voice translator: Yes
Text translator: Yes
Photo translator: Yes
Phrasebook: No
Offline translation: Yes
IMAGE: Mashable
BEST BACKUP TRANSLATION APP
SayHi
This free app doesn’t have key features like a photo translator or offline capabilities, but it has the best free voice and text translation of the bunch.
Voice translator: Yes
Text translator: Yes
Photo translator: No
Phrasebook: No
Offline translation: No
IMAGE: Mashable
BEST-DESIGNED TRANSLATION APP
Papago
Take a design straight out of Silicon Valley but make it free. That’s Papago. Just don’t expect less popular languages.
Voice translator: Yes
Text translator: Yes
Photo translator: Coming soon
Phrasebook: Yes
Offline translation: Only for Korean, Chinese, and Japanese
As billionaire and former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg attempts to buy (and meme) his way into the hearts of voters in the democratic primaries, there’s renewed scrutiny on who this dude is, what he’s done, and where he came from.
A good starting point is: How did Bloomberg earn the billions that make him the ninth richest man in the world?
A large part of the answer to that is The Bloomberg Terminal, a clunky but allegedly highly effective tech product. It’s an information portal, a social network, and a trading tool that’s deeply entrenched in the financial industry, used by finance bros and salespeople the world over. Read more…
More about Wall Street, Elections, Bloomberg, Tech, and Politics
Oakland residents hoping to listen to the city’s last remaining major pro sports team on the radio this year are in for a rude awakening.
The Oakland A’s announced on Tuesday that they would become the first Major League Baseball team to ditch a local radio broadcast for a streaming-only solution. Fans can listen to games through the TuneIn mobile app for free as long as they live in the A’s northern California media market, and the experience will otherwise be identical to before, with the same broadcasters calling games like they always have.
But if you live in the city of Oakland, you’ll no longer be able to turn on the radio in your home or your car and listen to the game, in what feels like something of a tragic development for the beleaguered sports town. In case you hadn’t heard, the NBA’s Warriors recently moved to San Francisco and the NFL’s Raiders officially belong to Las Vegas. Read more…
More about Baseball, Radio, Major League Baseball, Streaming Services, and Oakland A S
Even the most commonplace of objects, sufficiently decontextualized, has the power to take on new meaning.
We see this, perhaps most famously, with Marcel Duchamp’s “Fountain.” The so-called readymade sculpture was in fact simply a signed urinal. However, in part by separating it from the whole, Duchamp challenged his audience to see the porcelain as art. This, naturally, brings us to the recently created archive of Mark Zuckerberg’s haircuts.
Created by Sam Lavigne, an artist whose work focuses on automation and surveillance (among other things), the archive consists of 387 machine-learning generated images of Mark Zuckerberg’s hair. To isolate just the CEO’s mop, Lavigne used an “open source hair detector” available on GitHub. Read more…
More about Facebook, Mark Zuckerberg, Machine Learning, Tech, and Social Media Companies
Traveling takes a lot of planning, but it also takes a certain degree of spontaneity. Too much planning, and you’re stripping yourself of the opportunity to stumble upon something great by chance. Too much spontaneity, and you’ll find yourself missing out on interesting adventures that require you to plan ahead. The perfect collection of travel apps will help you balance both.
We’ve curated a collection of the best travel apps to help you do just that. Our list will help you plan your trip, explore local hidden gems, navigate cities, and connect with people — all while keeping your wallet happy and your body healthy. Don’t expect to see super-obvious, super-famous apps you already know, though; the Ubers, Lyfts, and Wazes of the world didn’t make the list because we know you’re looking for discoveries. Read more…
More about Travel, Carry On, Tech, and Consumer Tech
