Facebook, Google face first GDPR complaints over “forced consent”

After two years coming down the pipe at tech giants, Europe’s new privacy framework, the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), is now being applied — and long time Facebook privacy critic, Max Schrems, has wasted no time in filing four complaints relating to (certain) companies’ ‘take it or leave it’ stance when it comes to consent. […]

Dot lets you invest in property without the hassle of a traditional mortgage

Dot, a new U.K. startup de-cloaking today, aims to make it easy to invest in property without the hassle of taking out a traditional ‘buy to let’ mortgage. The company is founded by Gray Stern, who previously co-founded London-based Buy to Let mortgage lender Landbay, and so knows at least a thing or two about […]

PornHub launches a VPN for discreet browsing on mobile and desktop

To make it easier for you to avoid national censors and keep your porn browsing confidential, PornHub has launched a VPN service that works on your phone and desktop for smut and just about everything else on the web. VPNHub is available for Android, iOS, Windows, and macOS; the mobile versions offer a free ad-supported tier with unlimited bandwidth and don’t require you to create an account to use it. However, you’re restricted to a US-based proxy, and can’t opt for alternative nodes in other parts of the world. The desktop service requires a premium account, which you can try…

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Paypal lets you spend money in Gmail, YouTube and more

Android Pay users have been able to dip into their PayPal accounts for a little over a year. Now, the money transfer service has partnered with Google to provide a more seamless way to use it across products like Google Play, YouTube and Gmail.

Essential is reportedly selling itself

After barely a year in business and the release of a single phone, Essential is up for sale, reports Bloomberg. The Palo Alto-based hardware startup was founded by Android creator Andy Rubin and raised $300 million in funding. It is said to be looking for buyers, following poor sales of its PH-1 handset, and after allegations against Rubin of an inappropriate workplace relationship while he was Google came to light. Essential has also shelved plans for its second phone for the time being; if anything, we might see the release of the Essential Home, a puck-shaped smart assistant device that…

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Take a look at your Twitter timeline 10 years ago

Here’s a fun thing for a Friday: go back and see what your Twitter timeline looked like 10 years ago. Twitter has pretty powerful search settings, but Andy Baio — of Kickstarter fame and more — did the heavy-lifting for us all by sharing a link that let’s you look at your timeline exactly a decade […]

Lime, Bird and Spin have to temporarily remove scooters from SF

The San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency has officially made available its permit application for electric scooters to operate in the city as part of a one-year pilot program. Part of that means companies like Bird, Lime and Spin will need to at least temporarily remove their scooters from city sidewalks while their applications are being […]

Boba Fett 'Star Wars' movie is in the works

Just as the latest Star Wars Anthology movie, Solo, hits theaters, The Hollywood Reporter says that a movie featuring Boba Fett is in development. James Mangold, who directed The Wolverine before serving as writer and director on Logan will write and...

Vive Focus VR update lets you take calls from the real world

Even though the Vive Focus won't be available outside of China until later this year, it's already getting a major update which will make it a lot more versatile. At the annual Vive Ecosystem Conference in Shenzhen just now, HTC announced that as of...

ASUS will ship its NVIDIA G-Sync HDR monitor in June

Acer jumped ahead of the pack when it became the first manufacturer to put an NVIDIA G-Sync HDR monitor (which syncs refresh rates with GeForce GTX graphics cards) on sale last week. ASUS is following hot on its trail though, with a display that has...

Airbnb tests its own version of Snapchat's Stories for rentals

Even Airbnb can't resist the urge to copy Snapchat, it seems. The home rental outfit is quietly beta testing a Stories feature in its iPhone app that (surprise!) lets you document your trips with photos and short videos. You can view the resulting...

Jury finds Samsung owes Apple $539M in patent case stretching back to 2011

A patent case that began back in 2011 has reached a conclusion, with Samsung ordered to pay about $539 million to Apple over infringements of the latter's patents in devices that are now long gone. The case has dragged on for years as both sides argued about the finer points of how much was owed per device, what could be deducted, and so on. It's been eye-wateringly boring, but at least it's over now. Maybe.

Amazon Music app now offers hands-free control thanks to Alexa

Amazon Music's mobile app introduced Alexa voice control back in September, but there was a catch: you still had to tap a button to take action. Why couldn't you just talk to it like you would an Echo speaker? You can now. Both the Android and iOS...

Snapchat launches less creepy Send and Request Location features

Snapchat is taking another shot at location after its always-on coordinate-broadcasting Snap Map proved a bit invasive for some users. Snapchat now lets you send your on-going real-time location to a friend, or request theirs, which show up on the Snap Map and within your message thread. Essentially, this is location sharing built for the […]

White House gift shop site crashes over demand for coin celebrating Kim and Trump

The red hot deal of the day is causing some server issues at the White House gift shop’s website today. Those hoping to get a piece of history, in the form of a coin commemorating the historical North Korean summit, are being met with 504 errors and “server busy” messages. And the summit isn’t happening either. The deal: A commemorative coin celebrating the historical meeting between North Korean Supreme Leader (the coin’s words, not ours) Kim Jong Un and America’s President (the electorate’s words, not ours) Donald J. Trump, is on sale for $19.95 – down from its already reasonable…

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Andy Rubin’s Essential is reportedly up for sale and has cancelled work on its next smartphone

Essential, the smartphone company helmed by Android co-creator Andy Rubin, is trying to sell itself and has cancelled development of its next phone, Bloomberg reports. The report states that Essential has hired Credit Suisse Group AG to advise them on potentially selling itself. The company raised $330 million from investors, including Rubin’s own Playground Global, […]

Jury rules Samsung owes Apple $539 million in iPhone patent trial

In a patent case that has been running since 2011, today a jury ruled that Samsung owes Apple $539 million in total. In 2012 Apple was awarded $1 billion in damages, and Samsung agreed to pay as much as $548 million, but after the verdict was thrown...

Essential reportedly cancels next phone, considers sale

It's barely a year since Android founder Andy Rubin launched Essential, a new smartphone startup, and he's already considering giving it up for sale. According to Bloomberg, Rubin and co. has hired Credit Suisse Group AG to consult on a possible sale...

OpenStack in transition

OpenStack is one of the most important and complex open-source projects you’ve never heard of. It’s a set of tools that allows large enterprises ranging from Comcast and PayPal to stock exchanges and telecom providers to run their own AWS-like cloud services inside their data centers. Only a few years ago, there was a lot of […]

Amazon can’t explain why Alexa recorded and shared a private conversation

A Portland couple recently contacted Amazon customer support after an Echo smart speaker secretly recorded a private conversation and sent it to a person on their contacts list. Lucky for them, they were talking about hardwood floors at the time. But it’s still bad: They found out Alexa was snooping on them after one of the husband’s employees called them to say they’d just received an odd communication: a recording of a conversation between the couple. According to a report from Seattle CBS affiliate KIRO7, Danielle, who asked her last name be withheld, said they didn’t believe it at first.…

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Remember StumbleUpon? Well, it's going away June 30th

According to co-founder Garrett Camp, StumbleUpon has delivered nearly 60 billion "stumbles" to more than 40 million people over the past 16 years. The web discovery service — surprisingly still active — was always a unique way to find we...