Category Archives: Blog

A real-life Rick-roll is 100 times better than an internet Rick-roll.

Foo Fighters frontman Dave Grohl and YouTube’s most-beloved ’80s singer Rick Astley performed a surprise set at the Moth Club in London Friday night, including Astley’s infamous tune “Never Gonna Give You Up.”

Pictures and videos circulated around the internet, and it looks like everyone had a great time. How could you not?

More about Dave Grohl, Rick Astley, Entertainment, and Music

Android users need to exercise some caution when downloading apps on the Google Play store.

Cyber security firm Trend Micro recently found 85 different apps for Android phones that are actually adware apps in disguise. These sneaky camera and game apps were downloaded more than 8 million times in total.

The apps, which have been removed from the Google Play store after Trend Micro shared its findings with Google, would push out screen-covering, unskippable ads over the phone’s home screen, which is so obnoxious.

Not only that, if you realized the app was serving up these ads and didn’t want it on your phone anymore, you’d have a hard time deleting it. After being downloaded, the apps would wait 30 minutes then create a shortcut of the app on the home screen and hide the real icon, so when you tried to delete it, it would just delete the shortcut and not the app itself. Devious. Read more…

More about Android, Google Play, Adware, Tech, and Smartphones

My mother texted me, appalled. 

“Did you know this magazine recommends that your wedding should have branding?”

Unfortunately, I did. I’m in the early stages of planning my own wedding, and have been to a fair amount of friends’ nuptials. So at this point, on invitations and wedding signage galore, I’ve seen enough intertwined initials surrounded by curlicues or signals of the couple’s interests (suns, bikes, mountains, everyone is outdoorsy???), to know that creating a ~visual identity~ for one’s wedding is par for the course — maybe even a requirement — these days. 

One of the ways that design takes center stage in contemporary weddings is through the wedding website. When people are on the cusp of matrimony, they create a site with all the relevant (and not so relevant) information about their upcoming event, and often, themselves as a couple. The color scheme, fonts, and general look and feel of the site often carries over to the paper invitations and actual wedding. Read more…

More about Weddings, Marriage, The Knot, Zola, and Tech

They, perhaps more than any other gathered group of industry professionals, know how to defend against viruses. Just, maybe, not this kind. 

Hackers and cybersecurity researchers who attended this year’s annual Black Hat information security conference in Las Vegas found themselves on the receiving end of the wrong kind of security notification. On Thursday, the Southern Nevada Health District issued a warning stating that individuals in Vegas over the course of the conference may have been exposed to measles. 

Yes, as in literal measles. 

“The Southern Nevada Health District is informing individuals and the public who were at different locations listed below that they might have been exposed to a person who was confirmed to have a case of measles,” reads the statement.  Read more…

More about Measles, Black Hat, Tech, and Cybersecurity

The Volkswagen ID. Buggy is cute, doorless (and roofless!), and gives off strong beach vibes. But the dune buggy-inspired concept car is more than its looks. It’s about the possibilities of an electric vehicle. See, it’s not just SUVs and sedans that can get the electric treatment.

After making its debut earlier this year at the Geneva Motor Show, the ID. Buggy was just at Monterey Car Week to show what it can do off the showroom floor. The car kept busy hitting the beach and sand dunes of the California coast this week, not just sitting pretty with fancy design ideas on display. This is a driveable car. Even if it isn’t likely to ever be produced — at least for the masses — it shows “the versatility of the electric platform,” as VW spokesperson Jochen Tekotte said at the beach before a test drive. Read more…

More about Electric Vehicles, Volkswagen, Concept Car, Tech, and Transportation

It shouldn’t be news to any of us now that some parts of the internet…are bad. Even a lot of the good parts are being used by bad people, or for bad purposes like datamining and invasions of privacy without user consent.

That’s the kind of hard-hitting ethical quandary you probably wouldn’t expect from Silicon Valley, but the teaser for the forthcoming season of HBO’s tech startup satire promises to at least touch upon big names like Google and Amazon, even if it’s just for a scathing joke (what is Amazon, anyway?). 

The final season of Silicon Valley begins Oct. 27 on HBO. Read more…

More about Tech, Entertainment, Television, Silicon Valley, and Entertainment

Trump wants to buy Greenland, and the internet isn’t holding back on the memes.

The president has “repeatedly expressed interest” in buying the island, the Wall Street Journal reports, and has asked advisers about whether the United States can buy the self-ruling part of the Kingdom of Denmark. People close to the discussions also told the Wall Street Journal that Trump has asked White House counsel to “look into the idea.” 

Even if the U.Scould feasibly “buy” Greenland, Greenland itself brushed it off. In a statement, its foreign ministry affirmed that the island isn’t for sale. 

“Greenland is rich in valuable resources such as minerals, the purest water and ice, fish stocks, seafood, renewable energy, and is a new frontier for adventure tourism,” the foreign ministry said. “We’re open for business, not for sale.”  Read more…

More about Twitter, Trump, Greenland, Culture, and Web Culture

YouTuber Malinda Herman has a channel full of delightful song covers, many of which she sings to her two adoring dogs and extremely vocal cat. But the best one of all is perhaps her take on Lobo’s “I’d Love You to Want Me,” which is peppered with enthusiastic meows and makes her chihuahua so sleepy that he cuddles up to the guitar.

Are you crying? I am crying. Look at his little paws. Look at his little yawns! OK, hear me out: What if we delete all of YouTube except for this channel? I think it could be really good for everyone. Let me know! Read more…

More about Youtube, Dogs, Viral Videos, Culture, and Web Culture

At first glance, the bitter Twitter battle against CVS over birth control pills this week may have convinced you that the pharmacy giant was blocking access to the contraceptive. But like most Twitter scuffles, it’s complicated.

Here’s what’s really happening. 

CVS Caremark, a CVS subsidiary that works with pharmaceutical companies to set prescription pricing for customers of CVS and other pharmacies, has reduced how much it’ll reimburse retailers that only sell one product. One such online startup, Pill Club, mails women birth control in packages filled with other goodies like stickers that say “You are magical” and chocolate. CVS’ move means Pill Club will be reimbursed at a lower rate for customers whose insurance is tied to CVS Caremark, making it so the company can no longer afford to service those people. Read more…

More about Social Good, Birth Control, Cvs, Pill Club, and Social Good

No matter what side of the fence you land on — Apple die-hard or completely loyal to Windows-only tech — there’s always going to be something on sale for you, so let’s focus less on the “which is better” debate, and more on how much money you can save on a laptop or tablet of your choice. 

This weekend, there’s a bunch of great personal devices on sale — from regular laptops, to 2-in-1 computers, to fancy tablets. Some of our favorites this time around are a big discount on the iPad Pro, and a nice deal on the Microsoft Surface Pro, among others. Read more…

More about Tablets, Ipad Pro, Laptops, Microsoft Surface, and Mashable Shopping