One of the inherent drawbacks of digitally distributed games is that you can't loan them out to friends, but Steam has rewritten the rules a bit. Now that Valve's Family Sharing feature is out of beta, pretty much anyone can authorize another user --...
If you used Yahoo Messenger to video chat with your friends or strangers between 2008 and 2012 — and perhaps even later — British spies might have a collection of screenshots of your most intimate online conversations.
The GCHQ, the British equivalent of the NSA, has been caught collecting screenshots of millions of Yahoo users from their webcams through a program called "Optic Nerve," according to the latest Edward Snowden leak, published on Thursday. A large number of those images were, unsurprisingly, naked pictures taken from sexually explicit webcam sessions. How did this happen? And how worried should you be that something like this might happen again? Read more...
The Google Maps team has announced the addition of new underwater Street View images in locations around Mexico with the help of the Catlin Seaview Survey, an organization documenting the world's declining coral reefs via high-resolution, underwater photography.
Created in September 2012, the 360-degree, panoramic photographs produced by the Catlin Seaview Survey will allow scientists to monitor the health of coral reefs around the world and offer policy makers and the general public a closer look at a critical part of the environment.
Oscar night is no stranger to grandiose musical performances inspired by the nominated films. But what would the awkward sex scenes from Her between Joaquin Phoenix and Scarlet Johansson's voice sound like as a Broadway-inspired musical number?
Award-winning online media company Wayside Creations gave this year's Best Picture nominees — with the exception of 12 Years a Slave — a lyrical makeover for a spoof titled "Oscar Season: The Musical."
Oscarphiles can enjoy a song reminiscent of "Take Me or Leave Me" from Rent, but sung by the female lead characters from American Hustle. And where else can you watch the nominees enter into a full-on death match as they await for the winner's name to be called on stage? Read more...
Year-over-year growth of Twitter's monthly active users is declining quickly, both globally and in the U.S.
At its peak, within the past three years, Twitter grew internationally by more than 140%. However, as of Q4 2013, that growth is just under 40%, despite reaching 241 million monthly active users
Research firm eMarketer recently projected that Twitter's growth will slow even more over the next few years. The social platform will need to work hard for continued success.
The following chart, created by Statista, breaks down Twitter's year-over-year growth since 2011. Read more...
Apple's iOS in the Car has been a long time in coming -- we first heard about the automotive interface last June, and it still isn't ready despite the presence of relevant code in recent iOS 7 builds. The wait may soon be over, though, as the...
In the week leading up to the Academy Awards, we all like to put on our film critic hats and confidently predict which movies will win big.
And while none of us can know for certain which films and actors will take home the evening's major awards, there are indicators that can give us a sense of each film's relative chances. The results of other events during "awards season," such as the Golden Globes, the Screen Actor's Guild Awards and the Producer's Guild Awards, help us get a sense for who has the right momentum leading up to Oscars night.
No matter how good the food is, it seems like many restaurants hide the most important info (what's cooking, and how much does it cost?) under a slew of sub pages, outdated Flash interfaces or bizarre PDF scans of printed pages. Google Search users...
One of the more troubling technology stories to come out of the past week is the assault on Sarah Slocum, a San Francisco-based tech enthusiast and writer, who was apparently targeted because she was wearing Google Glass in a bar.
Like many incidents of this nature, the exact account of what happened is a little fuzzy. Slocum said she was merely showing friends how the connected headset works when other bar patrons began hurling insults her way. One witness told local media she was "running around very excited," which annoyed some of the people around her. But it's revealing that Slocum has publicly come forward with her account, while the people who confronted her have not. Read more...
For those who don't know, Project Tango is a Google-built prototype smartphone jam packed with Kinect-like 3D sensors and components. One of Mountain View's software partners involved in the project, FlyBy Media, has built what it's calling the first...
Even if you've never embarrassed yourself by unknowingly spreading an urban legend as fact to friends and family, you've at least been on the receiving end of one of these misinformed messages. Next time an email, tweet, or link seems a little fishy, here's how to spot it before your itchy trigger finger sends it to all your friends or followers.
Apple CEO Tim Cook has not been known for taking a strong stand on, well, just about anything. Caution has been the watchword of Cook's three-year tenure at the top of the world's wealthiest technology company. So far his legacy is largely comprised of incremental improvements in established products, tweaks to the supply chain, and more corporate transparency.
But Cook does care about the environment — and that became very clear on Friday, when the CEO had a terse exchange with an anti-environmental lobbying group
Apple has made vast improvements in its use of renewable energy since Cook took over from Steve Jobs. More than three-quarters of the company's facilities worldwide, including all of its data centers and its Cupertino HQ, now run on solar, wind, geothermal or hydro power, up from about a quarter under Jobs. Last year, Cook hired Lisa Jackson, former head of the EPA, to lead the company's sustainability efforts. Read more...
As the collapse of Mt. Gox continues — the world's best-known bitcoin exchange filed for bankruptcy protection on Friday — the Daily Show offered their take on the situation.
Jon Stewart's message for the embattled digital bankers? If you want to engage in real fraud, you need to have it sanctioned by the government
Stewart draws parallels between allegations of Fraud at Mt. Gox and tax dodging accusations leveled at Credit Suisse as well as the general distaste for Goldman Sachs, which evidently also now on its way to becoming a nuclear power. Read more...
In the coming decades, NASA has big plans for Mars, including intentions to blast a fifth rover onto the planet’s surface by 2020 and send a manned mission by 2030.
But long before humans step onto Mars’ barren terrain, scientists and researchers from around the world want to understand more about its potential to support human life.
They're especially interested in the possibility of growing plants on Mars, a more efficient process that would partially remove the need to ship expensive freeze-dried rations to the planet. Allowing crops to grow there that produce oxygen and scrub carbon dioxide there would make Mars a more livable environment. Read more...
Android: On the desktop, previously mentioned extension Lazarus is a life-saver when your browser crashes while you're entering form data. TypeMachine performs the same function on Android.
LOS ANGELES — You can't have a proper Academy Awards without Oscar, the ceremony's gold statuette that winners love to kiss
But behind its oh-so-kissable shiny veneer lies a rich history. Below, we've detailed 15 facts about the statuette that will impress your friends at your Oscars viewing party March 2.
The academy theorizes that the Oscar nickname derived from academy librarian Margaret Herrick, who in the 1930s said the award looked like her uncle named Oscar. Read more...
LOS ANGELES — Like Zorro victoriously raising his sword toward the sky, violinists in the Academy Awards orchestra whipped their bows in the air Thursday night after finishing playing a breathtaking score from Gravity at the first-ever Oscars Concert.
As the 80-piece orchestra entertained at UCLA's Royce Hall, dramatic scenes from the Oscar-nominated space film were displayed on a big screen behind the musicians.
The performance, arguably the most heart-pumping of the night, was part of a experimental concert experience in which every nominated song and score from this year's nominees got a moment to shine, with composers conducting their own music to a live audience. Read more...
