Netflix wants to get into the cinema business, according to a new report from The Los Angeles Times. Anonymous sources told the paper that the Los Gatos-based entertainment giant pursued a deal to buy the Mark Cuban-owned Landmark Theaters but ultimately backed out due to a high sale price. While it might sound wild that a company that got its start sending DVDs by mail now wants to sell popcorn and movie tickets, the idea actually makes a lot of sense. Read More >>

A couple of years ago, Andrew Oleck wondered if he could make a viral video. The Los Angeles-based filmmaker had been freelancing and doing commercial work for a decade and wanted to branch out. It took a while, but on 1 April, he released his first attempt at internet stardom: a three-minute satire, where Mark Zuckerberg says he’s decided to delete Facebook. The video has now been viewed over 32 million times. But the truly remarkable thing is how many people apparently think it’s real. Read More >>

Big news for lovers of the iPhone SE, a franken-gadget made of old Apple parts and billed as a more affordable iOS device: It appears that the budget iPhone lineup is finally going to get its first refresh two years after the original model hit the market. The announcement could come as early as WWDC in June. In fact, Apple might be announcing several new iPhones. Read More >>

It’s rare for Apple to make a reasonably priced product that is also excellent. The AirPods—love ‘em or hate ‘em—are an example of this happening. The new iPad is another. It’s good. It’s not great! But it’s probably all the iPad you need. Read More >>

It’s unclear when the Sony Sports boombox became my must-have gadget, but I think it was around 1992. With its bright yellow case, the portable music machine could be spotted from across the pool like a big bright sign that screamed, “I am rugged and cool!” I wanted one for all the wrong reasons, and now, it’s strange to feel similar rumblings about Sony’s new, waterproof Bluetooth speaker. Read More >>

The plan to 3D-print a bridge in mid-air was always bonkers. How could a technology best known for creating flimsy prototypes and personalised action figures be used for permanent construction projects? Well, the team at MX3D in Amsterdam just answered all of the hard questions and revealed it: the world’s first 3D-printed bridge. It’s made of a completely new type of steel, spans 40 feet, and will be installed early next year in De Wallen, the largest and best-known red-light district in Amsterdam. It also looks utterly otherworldly. Read More >>

61 years ago, the executives of Wham-O Inc. acquired the rights to a flying disk they called the Frisbee®. Now, the same company claims it’s reinvented the damn thing with a wobbly-looking toy called the Frisbee Sonic. It being 2018 and all, the new invention is being funded on Kickstarter. Oh, and I hate it. Read More >>

Facebook just revealed a frightening new figure for the number of users whose data was improperly shared by the political consultancy Cambridge Analytica. That number is now as high as 87 million. Whistleblower Christopher Wylie had previously said that more than 50 million people were affected. Now, according to Facebook CTO Mike Schroepfer, “up to 87 million” largely United States-based users were affected. Read More >>

In what it presumably hopes will be seen as swift and stern action to inform and protect its users, Facebook announced new terms of service and a new data policy on Wednesday. Don’t worry, though, it’s not like the company has gone soft in its war on privacy. It’s just more explicitly copping to the stuff people are already mad about. Read More >>

Nest recently released a new ad, and let me tell you: there are some issues with the content. So you see this teenage girl in a prom dress ring a Nest doorbell, and a teen couple walk out the front door. The two girls walk to a car, as a low robotic voice beckons the boy and proceeds to give him a fatherly speech about being a gentleman. Turns out, the voice is actually coming from the doorbell and belongs to his doctor dad who is at work at a hospital. Again, there are some issues. Read More >>

For the longest time, the iPad was Apple’s big boring thing. It never lived up to its promise to revolutionise media and save magazines. It didn’t really change the way we play mobile games. It certainly didn’t seem like a good investment. For the first eight years of the iPad’s existence, my primary exposure to it has been at coffee shops with those tablet-based cash registers. But this week, Apple did something subtle but remarkable: It talked me into buying one. Read More >>

It looks like we may have a winner in America’s great internet space race. The US Federal Communications Commission (FCC) just authorised SpaceX to launch its broadband satellite service, Starlink. That means Americans could be accessing the internet from space as early as 2019, pointing their phones at the sky and going online. Read More >>

For a long time it seemed like Facebook and its corral of code-cowboys were untouchable. That illusion has evaporated in the wake of the Cambridge Analytica scandal, and now, Facebook is officially the target of a Federal Trade Commission (FTC) investigation in the US. It’s about damn time, am I right? Read More >>

This week was full of startling, scary news about how carelessly Facebook treated user data, and how Cambridge Analytica, a political consultancy previously led in part by Steve Bannon, abused access to that data, possibly for Trump’s presidential campaign. The news was all but obvious to those who follow the company closely, yet the implications of it were unnerving. As they realised where their data went, people on Facebook felt betrayed. Read More >>

Frank Alsema describes himself as a “city maker.” The retired TV producer lives in north Amsterdam, where his house has become a lab for more sustainable urban lifestyle. The community there and throughout the Netherlands aspire to what they call a “circular economy.” That means recycling and reusing everything, including energy. That’s why Frank’s house is built out of stuff he bought on eBay. Read More >>