For years tech companies such as Amazon, Alphabet and Uber have promised us delivery drones bringing goods to our doorsteps in a matter of minutes. So why are they taking so long to arrive? One word: regulation. If our skies are to become as crowded as our streets, airspace rules need updating to prevent accidents, terrorist attacks, and related problems, such as noise pollution. But that's easier said than done. Here's a rundown of the main issues.

Fifty years ago last Sunday, a computer engineer named Douglas Engelbart gave a live demonstration in San Francisco that changed the computer industry and, indirectly, the world. In the auditorium, several hundred entranced geeks watched as he used something called a “mouse” and a special keypad to manipulate structured documents and showed how people in different physical locations could work collaboratively on shared files, online.

In 2015, airlines burned through 276 million tons of jet fuel. That’s roughly 7 percent of global oil products, and leads to direct emissions that make up 2.7 percent of global energy-related CO2 emissions. Worse yet, direct CO2 emissions are estimated to account for only half the sector’s total global warming impact, with other greenhouse gas emissions and the formation of contrails that trap heat in the atmosphere also having a large contribution.

Google will stop offering face recognition through its cloud APIs—that is, until it can come up with policies to  prevent misuses of the technology, it said in a blog post today.

Jennifer Valentino-DeVries, an investigative reporter for The Times, explains how reporters discovered some of the information mobile apps collect.

What is RCS messaging? It's the next generation of SMS.

...keeping the stalkers away for another day.

Charlie Santore sees Los Angeles from the inside, by breaking into safes whose owners can no longer unlock them.

Social network Tumblr is back on Apple's app store after pledging to remove adult content from the platform. Tumblr was removed from the app store in November after child abuse images were found to have slipped through its content filters. The social network then said it would ban adult content completely from 17 December. However, the move has angered many people who said they used the platform as a way to express their sexuality.

Satellites are providing torrents of data about the world’s active volcanoes, but researchers have struggled to turn them into a global prediction of volcanic risks. That may soon change with newly developed algorithms that can automatically tease from that data signals of volcanic risk, raising the prospect that within a couple years scientists could develop a global volcano warning system.

Although wind turbines may be a valuable source of eco-friendly energy, they do have at least one drawback – bats are frequently killed by their spinning blades. A promising new system is designed to help keep that from happening, however, by producing an ultrasonic acoustic field. As most people likely already know, bats find their way around in the dark by emitting ultrasonic calls.

Vitaminwater has announced that it is raising a challenge for smartphone addicts: ditch the gadget for a year and win a whopping $100,000. The staggering amount may sound enticing, but the task itself is harder than it sounds. Vitaminwater is willing to pay anyone who can live without their smartphone for a year, announced via Twitter with a hashtag #NoPhoneForAYear.

It can carry 50 pounds of cargo and travel 30 miles on a single charge and may be the last time you see your post.

A decade from now, city transit agencies in California will no longer be able to buy a bus that runs on diesel or natural gas. The California Air Resources Board, the state’s clean air agency, just voted on a new rule that will require cities to shift to 100% electric buses over time. It’s happening at a time when many California cities are already starting to buy new electric buses; more than 100 zero-emissions buses are already on roads in the state, and hundreds more are on order. But the new rule will make things move faster.

It has been six years since Dell first introduced its XPS Developer Edition moniker, which refers specifically to the company's XPS laptop models that ship with Ubuntu Linux (and not Windows) pre-installed. Ever since, Dell has been producing some of the best Linux "ultrabooks" in recent memory.

Computing pioneer Evelyn Berezin died at 93 this week. She was most known as the designer of the first true word-processing computer. But she designed many other innovative computing systems and helmed Redactron Corporation, a company that helped transform offices by producing and distributing her word-processor device.

Yes, yes they could. And I would no longer bet they won't. Here's why.

The woman who created and sold what many recognise as the world's first word processor has died aged 93. Evelyn Berezin called the device the Data Secretary when, in 1971, her company Redactron launched the product. She grew Redactron from nine employees to close to 500 and was named one of the US's top leaders by BusinessWeek magazine in the year she sold it, 1976.

Steps for Carpet Steam Cleaning and know hoq DIY and professional do this.

Here are some advantages of automatic doors: The best things of an automatic door are that it arrives in a variety of styles, shapes, designs, and colours. Automatic doors are accessible in three...

In a bid to get around terrestrial height restrictions, Clouds Architecture Office has proposed suspending the world's tallest skyscraper from an asteroid, leaving residents to parachute to earth. New York-based Clouds Architecture Office drew up plans for Analemma Tower to "overturn the established skyscraper typology" by building not up from the ground but down from the sky by affixing the foundations to an orbiting asteroid.

The tech news was dominated in October by a dramatic Bloomberg claim that Chinese spy chips had been embedded into the Super Micro motherboards of servers supplied to Apple, Amazon and others. The report claimed that Apple had discovered the chips, and reported the fact to the FBI. All involved – Apple, Amazon and Super Micro – denied the claims, but the motherboard supplier decided the only way to lay this to rest was to commission an independent audit to investigate.

Coinbase is the most conservative exchange in cryptoland, largely because it operates in the U.S. under the watchful eye of the SEC. The $8 billion-valued company trades fewer than ten cryptocurrencies to consumers but on Friday announced it announced a major expansion that could see it list up to 30 new tokens.

Tesla's sleek, upscale electric vehicles have captured a wide audience -- wide enough that traditional makers of luxury vehicles are feeling the need to compete directly with the Silicon Valley upstart. At the same time, Tesla has inspired other start-up electric-vehicle makers, some of whom are aiming for the same market that Tesla has so far had for itself. On top of that, the mainstream automakers are drawing inspiration from Tesla as they design their own electric vehicles for the mass market.

As a 31-year-old mother of two, being told to prepare for life in a wheelchair was not part of Andrea Zorbalas's life plan. But in late 2010, when the words "you have multiple sclerosis" came out of her doctor's mouth, her life changed forever. "It was devastating," Ms Zorbalas said. "I had a young family to look after. "The doctors said that I basically had 10 years before I was in a wheelchair because the MS was so aggressive."

This new threat automates a PayPal transaction for $1000 and sends it using the official PayPal app—even on accounts with 2FA enabled.

Nvidia is a company that has reached the highest highs and the lowest lows, all in the span of a couple of weeks. TechCrunch is experimenting with new content forms. This is a rough draft of something new – provide your feedback directly to the author (Danny at danny@techcrunch.com) if you li…

Beyond the raft of new EVs and concepts at the LA Motor Show this year, the two most interesting things were not in the form of cars at all. First was Volvo's stand. It had no cars on it at all. None. While other manufacturers were squeezing as many motors onto their plots as they could manage, Volvo had a couple of technology booths on display (some VR nonsense and an early look at it's new Google UI for the entertainment system), Luminar LIDAR sensors that have a range of 250 metres...

Tech billionaire Eric Schmidt, the former CEO of Google, is optimistic that humans will be able to shut down dangerous machines should they start to appear. Speaking last week on an artificial intelligence podcast hosted by MIT research scientist Lex Fridman, Schmidt said that he didn't share the same concerns as people like Elon Musk, MIT professor Max Tegmark, or Nick Bostrom, a Swedish philosopher at Oxford University. "We would unplug Terminator if it showed up," he said. "Were the killer robots to start, we would find a way to stop them."

 Google CEO Sundar Pichai, head of one of the world's leading artificial intelligence companies, said in an interview this week that concerns about harmful applications of the technology are "very legitimate" - but the tech industry should be trusted to responsibly regulate its use.

The millions of dots on the map trace highways, side streets and bike trails — each one following the path of an anonymous cellphone user. One path tracks someone from a home outside Newark to a nearby Planned Parenthood, remaining there for more than an hour. Another represents a person who travels with the mayor of New York during the day and returns to Long Island at night.

Money and technology have each had starring roles in the story of human civilization. Individually, both hold a special allure to us. The adoption of the use of currency has propelled our collective ability to trade, and for better or worse, the accumulation of currency acts a primary measuring stick of status in society. Our long-standing love affair with technology, research and scientific exploration, seems as much an inherent part of who we are as organisms, as it is a conscious choice that we have made as a species to continually learn more.

The new six-pack ring is made from wheat and barley instead of plastic, making it much more appealing to the more socially conscious consumers. 

A shiny black taxi swerves to the curb in front of 23 Featherstone Street, the London headquarters of ConsenSys. The driver is a big man—bald, lean, and clad in a blue bomber jacket—and as he eases himself from the driver’s seat, he immediately goes for a cigarette. He squints as he edges toward me. No, it’s not the Long Good Friday. Bob Hoskins isn’t waiting in a back-alley with a shiv and thirty pounds of cocaine.

I am going to install the bifold doors at my confectionery shop. As I have very less space for the entrance at my shop. These bi-fold doors would help...