A university is outfitting living spaces with thousands of Echo Dots

Soon, Saint Louis University students won’t be able to avoid Amazon’s near ubiquitous smart speakers. The university announced this week a plan to outfit living spaces with 2,300 Echo Dots. The devices are set to be deployed by the time classes start, later this month. SLU is quick to note that it’s “the first college […] https://ift.tt/2vX5ylQ Brian Heater August 19, 2018 at 12:00PM

The best iPhone cases

By Nick Guy This post was done in partnership with Wirecutter. When readers choose to buy Wirecutter's independently chosen editorial picks, Wirecutter and Engadget may earn affiliate commission. Read the full iPhone cases guide here. A good case i... https://ift.tt/2L7ibzk Wirecutter August 19, 2018 at 12:00PM

Soon you’ll be able to watch high school football on Twitter

Just at the NFL is gearing up to kickoff its regular season, Adidas has announced that it will be partnering with Twitter to livestream high school football games on the platform. The “Friday Night Stripes” series (Get it? Get it?) will include eight games, featuring teams from California, Georgia, Florida, Nevada and Indiana. The series […] https://ift.tt/2vX5wKK Brian Heater August 19, 2018 at 12:00PM

After Math: What could go wrong?

It's been a week of risk in the tech world, and I don't just mean Elon Musk's recent Twitter-on-acid experiment. Best Buy is wagering $800 million on a company that teaches your grandparents how gadgets work, Saint Louis University is peppering its d... https://ift.tt/2L6t3xm Andrew Tarantola August 19, 2018 at 12:00PM

HUD complaint accuses Facebook ads of violating Fair Housing Act

A new complaint filed Friday by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) accuses Facebook of helping landlords and home sellers violate the Fair Housing Act. According to the grievance filed by the department, Facebook’s ad settings let sellers disregard laws by targeting specific demographics. HUD says that the ability to tailor Facebook […] https://ift.tt/2nPKDwp Brian Heater August 19, 2018 at 12:00PM

Original Content podcast: ‘To All The Boys I’ve Loved Before’ is a charming high school romance

While Hollywood’s interest in romantic comedies seems to be fading, Netflix has been picking up some of the slack. Just a few months ago, it released the tremendously fun Set It Up. And now we’ve got To All The Boys I’ve Loved Before, a high school romance based on the young adult novel by Jenny Han. […] https://ift.tt/2ONz30d Anthony Ha August 19, 2018 at 12:00PM

Unity isn’t just for video games anymore — it can also help you build a career

If your career path is headed anywhere close to entertainment, Unity training like the courses in the Complete Unity Game Developer Bundle ($39, over 90 percent off, from TNW Deals) are a great place to start.

https://ift.tt/2nRfNni TNW Deals August 19, 2018 at 12:00PM

What the hell is the deal with Tether?

It was a simple concept: a cryptocurrency whose units were always and constantly worth exactly one dollar, because they were backed by dollars held in a bank. Voila: dollars with the powers of crypto, such as the ability to quickly and permissionlessly transfer an arbitrary amount … and, er, a certain lack of pesky regulations. […] https://ift.tt/2OIs2h6 Jon Evans August 19, 2018 at 12:00PM

Galaxy Note 9 vs. S9 Plus vs. Note 8: What's new?

Here's how the new Samsung Galaxy Note 9 compares with the S9 Plus and the earlier Note 8. Subscribe to CNET: https://www.youtube.com/user/CNETTV CNET playlists: https://www.youtube.com/user/CNETTV/playlists Download the new CNET app: https://ift.tt/2fmiQ6l Like us on Facebook: https://ift.tt/1930vfU Follow us on Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/cnet Follow us on Instagram: http://bit.ly/2icCYYm https://ift.tt/2PlArIs CNET August 19, 2018 at 10:00AM

Omarosa's Possible Trump Tapes Top This Week's Internet News Roundup

There are more tapes than people originally thought, apparently. https://ift.tt/2N0etJB Graeme McMillan August 19, 2018 at 09:00AM

This Week in Cars: Elon Musk and the Future of Tesla

As Elon Musk draws the wrath of investors and maybe the SEC, whither Tesla? Plus, the Boring Company heads to LA, and Alphabet's Sidewalk Labs tries to rethink the future of cities. https://ift.tt/2PjUyqC Jack Stewart August 19, 2018 at 09:00AM

The best and worst gaming laptop brands of 2018

Gaming laptops are awesome. In some cases, they are highly configurable powerhouses with their own light shows, and in others, they are bargain machines that offer just enough oomph to play the latest and greatest PC games. But there's a lot to consi... https://ift.tt/2MVBLQO Laptop Magazine August 19, 2018 at 09:00AM

Tired of Twitter? Join Me on Mastodon

Forget Twitter's truncated timeline, terrible ad algorithm, spammy sponsored content, and overall bad vibes. Give Mastodon a shot. https://ift.tt/2PmbHzS Brendan Nystedt August 19, 2018 at 09:00AM

The History of 'It's Not a Bug, It's a Feature'

It's an acknowledgment, half comic, half tragic, of the ambiguity that has always haunted computer programming. https://ift.tt/2BqaeFV Nicholas Carr August 19, 2018 at 09:00AM

How to Protect Your Phone Against a SIM Swap Attack

Your phone number is increasingly tied to your online identity. You need to do everything possible to protect it. https://ift.tt/2MzLuzw Brian Barrett August 19, 2018 at 09:00AM

Federal court orders alleged hacker to pay for bail with cryptocurrency

Defendants in US federal court cases now have another option for staying out on bail: emptying their virtual wallets. A district court in San Francisco has ordered alleged hacker Martin Marsich to pay the equivalent of $750,000 in cryptocurrency if h... https://ift.tt/2MoPgfx Jon Fingas August 19, 2018 at 06:00AM

Securing web sites with HTTPS made them less accessible

In the middle of last month — July 2018, I found myself staring at a projector screen, waiting once again to see if Wikipedia would load. If I was lucky, the page started rendering 15-20 seconds after I sent the request. If not, it could be closer to 60 seconds, assuming the browser didn’t just time out on the connection. I saw a lot of “the server stopped responding” over the course of a few days. It wasn’t just Wikipedia, either. CNN International had similar load times. So did Google’s main search page. Even this here site, with minimal assets to…

This story continues at The Next Web

https://ift.tt/2BqNuWt Eric A. Meyer August 19, 2018 at 06:00AM

'Forza Horizon 2' leaves the Xbox Store on September 30th

We hope you weren't thinking of scoring Forza Horizon 2 on the cheap now that Horizon 4 is almost here. Turn 10 and Microsoft are removing the open-world arcade racer and its add-ons from the Xbox Games Store on September 30th. You can still play i... https://ift.tt/2MGRXsx Jon Fingas August 19, 2018 at 12:00AM

Bots on Amazon's task service may be souring psych studies

It's not uncommon for scientists to use Amazon's Mechanical Turk for research -- they can quickly gather survey data in return for a small outlay to participants. Academics are quickly discovering the limits of the task service with the modern bot-ha... https://ift.tt/2OL7ZyE Jon Fingas August 19, 2018 at 12:00AM

Netflix purges all user reviews like it said it would

If you're browsing Netflix for a new show to watch, don't bother looking for reviews on the platform to see if a title is worth your time. The streaming service is done purging user reviews -- a decade's worth of comments praising and excoriating sho... https://ift.tt/2PmCwUK Mariella Moon August 18, 2018 at 09:00PM

The tech angle in dogs, mac and cheese and working out

Welcome back to TechCrunch Mixtape, the podcast where Megan Rose Dickey and I, Henry Oliver Pickavet, talk about some of the stories of the week that we feel like talking about. This week it was dogs, working out and mac and cheese. BarkBox creators Bark and Co. decided that Nashville, Tenn., needed a place for […] https://ift.tt/2MUxMnA Henry Pickavet August 18, 2018 at 09:00PM

Facebook hit with federal complaint over discriminatory housing ads

Despite past efforts, Facebook hasn't avoided federal-level trouble over allegations it enabled discriminatory housing ads. The Department of Housing and Urban Development has officially filed a complaint against Facebook, accusing the social network... https://ift.tt/2PmdYLy Jon Fingas August 18, 2018 at 09:00PM

Skype previews texting feature for PCs

Skype has given Insiders on Android a sneak peek of an upcoming feature called "SMS Connect." Windows Blog Italia has spotted an option in the latest version of Skype Preview's settings that would allow you to send and receive texts using Skype on Ma... https://ift.tt/2BpGSaO Mariella Moon August 18, 2018 at 06:00PM

Leaks reveal NVIDIA GeForce RTX cards ahead of August 20th event

NVIDIA hasn't been shy about plans to unveil Turing-based GeForce video cards at its August 20th Gamescom event -- its teaser video effectively spelled out "GeForce RTX 2080" through not-so-subtle clues. But just how powerful will these cards be? You... https://ift.tt/2Pm204A Jon Fingas August 18, 2018 at 06:00PM

Netflix axes Michelle Wolf and Joel McHale talk shows

Netflix has been experimenting (rather aggressively) with talk shows for a while in an effort to diversify its titles, but results have been hit or miss thus far. It's hard to get attached to a particular program only to see it canceled after a few m... https://ift.tt/2ONc6ua Mariella Moon August 18, 2018 at 03:00PM

Distributed teams are rewriting the rules of office(less) politics

When we think about designing our dream home, we don’t think of having a thousand roommates in the same room with no doors or walls. Yet in today’s workplace where we spend most of our day, the purveyors of corporate office design insist that tearing down walls and bringing more people closer together in the […] https://ift.tt/2MypW6m John Chen August 18, 2018 at 03:00PM

Elon Musk says Tesla could build $25,000 EV in about 'three years'

When Elon Musk unveiled Tesla's second master plan, the $35,000 Model 3 represented the price floor. It wasn't set in stone, but you couldn't realistically expect more. However, the dream of a truly affordable Tesla EV just got a little more tangib... https://ift.tt/2OMAn3n Jon Fingas August 18, 2018 at 03:00PM

Global unicorn exits hit multi-year high in 2018

Unicorn exits are taking flight. With the IPO window wide open, an apparent record number of venture-backed companies privately valued over $1 billion have launched public offerings this year. https://ift.tt/2MATuQv Joanna Glasner August 18, 2018 at 03:00PM