Geek News

Environment Our guide to evacuating ethically in the wilderness Even most casual hikers know they should “pack out” their garbage—but plenty of them feign ignorance when it comes to packing out poop. And that's a huge problem. via Popular Science "http://ift.tt/2td7984"

Has Alexa been giving you the cold shoulder recently? You're far from the only one. Outages in Amazon's cloud services muted the voice assistant for many people on March 2nd, producing error messages when you spoke commands to Echo speakers and other Alexa-equipped devices. The issue didn't affect everyone (we successfully spoke to Alexa in Canada during the outage, for instance) and could sometimes be overcome by using the Alexa app, but you certainly didn't want to depend on the AI helper for anything important. Amazon's issue also affected us, we'd add — it prevented us from updating the site properly for a few hours. Sorry about that. We've asked Amazon for comment and will let you know when it can share more details. Whatever it says, the incident is a not-so-subtle reminder of the risks involved in making a device heavily dependent on the internet, even for local tasks. It's great when it works, but it can be maddening when everything goes so...

Snap's camera-adorned Spectacles were never going to be a huge seller; rather, they represented the company's first dip into hardware . Still, they sold less than expected, with reports claiming the company had hundreds of thousands of unsold pairs and a confirmation that Snap took a $40 million bath after completely mis-estimating demand. Despite a rocky launch, it seems that Snap may not be ready to give up on its hardware ambitions just yet. Cheddar is reporting that Snap is planning two new pairs of Spectacles. The second-generation Spectacles are rumored to be ready this fall, about two years after the original. /Cheddar/ claims that the new glasses will focus more on improved performance, but it sounds like they'll be largely similar to the original. Other changes include new colors and waterproofing, something that could make for some fun videos. But Snap is also reportedly going to release a third version that would include two cameras. Given the popularity ...

This week, Google is expanding its “featured snippets,” the portion of text that is returned above a search result to give you quick answers without having to click through, as reported by TechCrunch . In a blog post, Google explains it is adjusting this function because the questions we ask can be multifaceted and mean different things. For example, the terse, sample query “garden needs full sun?” could mean “what garden plants need full sun?” or “what counts as full sun?” Another example Google gives is “tooth pain after filling,” which could be understood as “why does my tooth still hurt after a filling?” or “how long should a tooth hurt after a filling?” Where before Google would previously only return one featured snippet (which... Continue reading… via The Verge - Tech Posts "http://ift.tt/2F9rvot"

Animals Even urban areas have wild animals galore. From big-brained mice to feral pigeons, the city is positively teeming with wildlife. via Popular Science "http://ift.tt/2FK1KYF"

A new Pew Research Center survey finds that 35 percent of US adults use Instagram — an increase of 7 percent from 2016. Other findings confirm most of what we’ve come to know of other social media platforms: Instagram, Snapchat, and Twitter tend to be more popular among the young crowd, especially 18 to 24-year-olds. YouTube is the most popular online platform, used by 73 percent of all US adults and 94 percent of those ages 18 to 24. That means virtually all college-aged people consistently watch videos on YouTube. Facebook also remains at the top of the social media popularity totem pole for most people except those age 65 and above. Its usage has grown since Pew started its surveys in 2012, although the number of US adult Facebook... Continue reading… via The Verge - Tech Posts "http://ift.tt/2F4oC86"

If you’re willing to switch to Sprint (or add a new line) to save on the iPhone X’s regular $1,000 asking price, the carrier is running a somewhat decent deal right now . People who sign up for the company’s Sprint Flex 18-month lease program will pay $20 per month for the base model iPhone X. Usually that recurring payment is $41.67. Sprint claims this to be “the lowest price” among carriers, but that’s slightly deceptive. When Sprint says lease, it really means lease. At the end of that 18-month term, you still don’t own the iPhone; you’ll have to decide whether to trade it back in for an upgrade or pay what’s left on the balance and keep it. Other carriers do monthly installments that end with you having paid the full price of the... Continue reading… via The Verge - Tech Posts "http://ift.tt/2Fibyv3"

Yesterday, Twitter issued a call for proposals to measure its “contribution to the overall health of the public conversation” so that it could help “encourage more healthy debate, conversations, and critical thinking,” and discourage “abuse, spam and manipulation.” It’s the kind of high-minded request that you’d expect from a platform that presents itself as a powerful civic forum for the digital age. But measuring the “public conversation” isn’t going to solve Twitter’s central problem: that there’s a big difference between promoting a public conversation and creating a livable space, and Twitter might not be able to have both. Twitter’s model of engagement is almost completely binary: you can take a veritable vow of silence with... Continue reading… via The Verge - Tech Posts "http://ift.tt/2F7YYiV"

Technology The Equifax hack exposed more than 100 million people to the worst kind of identity theft. You can change your stolen credit card and reclaim a bank account, but a stolen social security number is a big problem. via Popular Science "http://ift.tt/2I0pb0E"

Netgear’s Arlo line of wire-free security cameras aren’t exactly the cheapest cameras on the market, but they’re super popular, cute to look at , filled with features, and now they’re getting Google Assistant support. Once you add your Arlo cameras to the Google Home app (most of the Arlo line is supported), you can ask Google Assistant to pull up any of those camera feeds. You can stream the video to Google Assistant on iOS and Android, but the real fun is in the Chromecast integration. It works a little something like this: ”Ok Google, show Front Door on Living Room TV” Other security cameras, including Logitech’s Circle and Nest Cam IQ , already have shipped with Google Assistant, too. With Nest Cam IQ you can actually use the camera’s... Continue reading… via The Verge - Tech Posts "http://ift.tt/2HVG78u"

Today's Deal: Save 66% on Styx: Shards of Darkness !* Look for the deals each day on the front page of Steam. Or follow us on twitter or Facebook for instant notifications wherever you are! *Offer ends Sunday at 10AM Pacific Time via Steam RSS News Feed "http://ift.tt/2HXX3LD"

The Australian government is considering a bill that would make it illegal for ISPs to falsely advertise high internet speeds. Under the proposed legislation, lying about internet speeds would become a fineable offense that could cost ISPs that violate the law up to $1 million AUD. Andrew Wilkie, a member of Parliament who introduced the bill this week, told Motherboard , “People are getting worse than dial-up speed when they’ve been promised a whizz-bang, super-fast connection.” He described one person complaining to him that they were charged for a 25 Mbps download speed and a 5 Mbps upload speed, but they were getting less than one-tenth of that. The proposed law would order ISPs to become more transparent about internet speeds and... Continue reading… via The Verge - Tech Posts "http://ift.tt/2FintcA"

Amazon’s digital assistant Alexa has gone quiet today in an unintended, real world reproduction of the company’s Super Bowl ad . An outage impacting Amazon’s servers has led to Alexa becoming unresponsive on Echo products and other devices that support the assistant; I just tried a simple weather inquiry on the Echo Dot in my living room, and the signature blue ring stayed lit up for about 15 seconds without any answer. A tone eventually sounded, and Alexa said it had lost connection. Subsequent attempts have all failed, producing a red ring accompanied by Alexa asking me to try again later. The Verge has reached out to Amazon for details on when its normally helpful assistant might be back up and running. The issue is likely tied to... Continue reading… via The Verge - Tech Posts "http://ift.tt/2FL9ARO"

Gadgets The end-of-week dispatch from PopSci's commerce editor. Vol. 39. Throughout the week I spend hours scouring the web for things that are ingenious or clever or ridiculously cheap. via Popular Science "http://ift.tt/2t6P1wI"