Insights

Welcome to CHEAP, our series about things that are good, but most of all, cheap. CHEAP! Fitbit has always been a ‘cool’ thing to have. People gift Fitbit bands to friends and family so they can start ‘working out.’ Or at least spend a few days harping about the importance of health and try to beat the daily...

After almost a decade of making non-Half Life things — much to the frustration of fans — Valve today announced via Twitter it’s making something called Half-Life: Alyx, a “flagship VR” game. We’re excited to unveil Half-Life: Alyx, our flagship VR game, this Thursday at 10am Pacific Time. Can’t wait to...

No one needs a virtual Toyota. We need to give users good reasons to leave their reality behind and immerse themselves in a new one. Just a few years ago, virtual reality was being showered with very real money. The industry raised an estimated $900 million in venture capital in 2016, but by 2018 that figure...

While both Microsoft and Sony are waiting until next year to release their next generation of game consoles, Google is beating them to the fight. With the launch of its streaming console: Google Stadia tomorrow, we see the search giant’s vision of the future of gaming. Unlike its established competitors, Google is...

WhatsApp has fixed a vulnerability involving malicious MP4 video files that could potentially allow an attacker to remotely access messages and files stored in the app. The flaw — identified as CVE-2019-11931 — made it possible for attackers to send a specially crafted MP4 file to remotely execute malicious code...

Witness intimidation could be added to the list of Trump’s offenses seen as impeachable. “Witness intimidation is a crime,” tweeted Kamala Harris, moments after Adam Schiff paused the House Intelligence Committee’s impeachment hearing today. Schiff, the top Democrat leading the hearing,...

You need to be intentional about it. Sometimes, I think I should update my LinkedIn job title to “Manel,” which stands for all-male panels preventer. Several times a year, I get requests to participate on a panel of all men at a big conference. It happens in both of my core fields: national security and...

The platform continues to demonstrate that treating users like people doesn’t have to be so hard. Twitter still can’t get its ongoing harassment problems under control. Facebook refuses to take a stand on protecting what’s true. But Pinterest continues to make doing the obvious, right thing look...

The Joint Enterprise Defense Infrastructure project is one of the initiatives the U.S. Government is taking to modernize its critical computer infrastructure. Last month the Pentagon awarded a $10 billion cloud-computing contract to Microsoft after months of three of the largest cloud-computing players companies vying...

If you’re a Harry Potter fan, you might know how to properly say “Leviosa.” But many muggles don’t know how to pronounce that, and other difficult words. No worries. Google’s new feature will help you pronounce tricky words just directly from the search results. All you have to do is type “How do you...

After a report that Google is accessing 50 million patient records without people’s knowledge, its future in the medical field may depend on regaining people’s trust. This week, Google was strung up in the public square for a deal with a very large U.S. healthcare provider that netted it access to some...

GitHub has officially launched a new Security Lab with an aim to secure open-source software. The objective is to “bring together security researchers, maintainers, and companies across the industry who share our belief that the security of open source is important for everyone,” the Microsoft-owned code...

Facebook is trying to really hard to tell people it owns Instagram and WhatsApp. Earlier this month, the company introduced new branding for all of its apps. On Wednesday, it introduced Facebook Pay, a service that’ll work across all apps. Now, it’s testing an Instagram feed-like feature in its main app. A report...

Rich Communication Services (RCS) has been a long time coming. Billed as the future of text messaging and the technology that will eventually replace SMS and MMS, it’s been Google’s pet project as the way to ‘fix’ messaging on mobile devices ever since the company gave up on Hangouts and Allo. Instead of using...

Earlier this year Facebook said it would crack down on ads from groups peddling misinformation about vaccines. The announcement was heralded by medical professionals and pundits as a capstone in their efforts to fight the pro-disease movement. However, in the time since the announcement, Facebook‘s done the exact...

RCS Chat will be “broadly available” in the United States by the end of the year. Google is pushing ahead with plans to upgrade Android text messaging in the United States. By the end of this year, the company expects to broadly roll out RCS Chat through its Android Messages app. Users who opt into Chat...

Our emotional intelligence is what sets us apart. It’s no secret that interpersonal skills are the way of the future. In fact, it’s likely they will define your future. A 2018 LinkedIn global survey of 4,000 professionals concluded that “training for soft skills is the number-one...

“I think people read different things into the logos. Some of them like the aesthetic of the glitchiness, and for others there’s a political or even anti-consumerist message to them,” says the artist behind @glitchlogos. Three years ago, self-proclaimed internet artist Darius Kazemi launched a...

But, for how great WordPress is, it can be frustrating to use if you're new to coding and want something that's a little more sophisticated than your run-of-the-mill WordPress site. That's why there's WP Page Builder, and it's now over 90 percent off at just $49 from TNW Deals.

‘Headed South’ is a beautiful experience, but it’s also a demonstration that one of Google’s most experimental technologies is still just an experiment. Google’s Pixel 4 phone gives up on a lot of what made the Pixel line great. At least in my personal opinion! But it does feature an...

Motorola launched its much-awaited foldable phone Razr today at an event in Los Angles. The phone costs a whopping $1,500 and it’s exclusive to Verizon in the US. The clamshell phone has a 6.2-inch display that folds in.   The new Moto Razr will be available from December 26. Developing…For more gear, gadget, and...

It was just yesterday we reported on a disconcerting bug in Facebook’s iOS app that would sometimes open your camera in the background while scrolling through your feed. It appears Facebook has fixed the bug; The Verge reports the updated version of the App is now available in the App Store. As a recap, users found...

With Map’s new text-to-speech feature, you no longer have to look like an idiot pointing to an app to tell your driver where you want to go. Google Maps is introducing a cool feature this month that will make navigating a foreign country where you don’t speak the local language easier. Leveraging the...

2020 is set to be a defining year for European tech. While startups and scaleups have been supported over the years through a number of EU-based programs, newly elected European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen has made achieving technological sovereignty a rallying cry for more globally competitive European...