Sean Hollister
The Verge
California, United States
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Recent articles by Sean:
Dropbox had to evacuate its headquarters when an electric scooter caught fire
The San Francisco Fire Department has confirmed to The Verge that Dropbox evacuated its SF headquarters at 333 Brannan yesterday after an electric scooter caught fire on the fifth floor of the building. The SFFD says it was able to extinguish the fire, and that no one got hurt. Just another Wednesday in Silicon Valley. → Read More
Microsoft’s new privacy policy admits humans are listening to some Skype and Cortana recordings
Microsoft has been quietly letting human contractors listen to your Skype translations and Cortana voice recordings, like other companies. But unlike Apple and Google, each of which halted listening to some of these recordings after the revelations, Microsoft appears to be merely updating its privacy policy to admit what it’s doing. → Read More
The FAA has banned recalled MacBook Pros from all flights — like any other bad battery
Not like they can easily tell the MacBooks apart, anyhow → Read More
Human dressed as TV trolls town by leaving TVs on people’s porches
The tale of a man who literally stuck a giant television on his or her head so they could bring joy to the world in the form of unwanted TV sets. → Read More
This label means your laptop has nine hours of real battery life, guaranteed
When Intel announced the consumer-friendly Project Athena initiative to hold manufacturers to a higher standard, it forgot to create any meaningful way for buyers to know which laptops actually meet its requirements. Now, there’s a visual indicator. → Read More
Samsung explains why the Note 10 doesn’t have a headphone jack
The Galaxy Note 10 doesn’t include the 3.5mm socket, even though it’s the phone that would have been most likely to keep it around. So why is Samsung finally ditching the headphone jack after three years of holding the line against Apple? → Read More
Amazon Echo Auto review: So... how dumb is your car?
The Amazon Echo Auto is Alexa in your car, and perhaps the most impressive home for Amazon’s voice assistant yet. But it’s better thought of as a voice launcher for music or a Bluetooth to 3.5mm audio adapter that happens to have Amazon’s smart assistant as a bonus feature, given all the frustrations. → Read More
Microsoft’s new Mac vs. PC ad gets a guy named “Mac Book” to diss Apple
Apple and Microsoft have a storied history of duking it out on TV, often cleverly sniping at each other in a series of iconic Mac vs. PC ads. But Microsoft’s latest campaign is a rather low blow — it apparently found a guy named Mackenzie Book (Mac Book, get it?) to testify that the Surface Laptop 2 is a better buy than a MacBook. → Read More
Massive Capital One breach exposes personal info of 100 million Americans
Banking institution Capital One has just revealed that it’s suffered a data breach that exposed the names, addresses, phone numbers, emails, dates of birth, and self-reported incomes of approximately 100 million Americans, and 6 million in Canada, due to a “configuration vulnerability” in the servers of an unnamed cloud computing company hosting the bank’s data. → Read More
You can now run Android on a Nintendo Switch
The Nintendo Switch can now run Android, turning the handheld into an Android tablet with access to Netflix, YouTube, Spotify, Twitch, a wide array of Android apps, and loads of classic game emulators, of course. Specifically, it’s an unofficial port of LineageOS 15.1 based on Nvidia’s own build for the Nvidia Shield TV set-top-box. Six years after Nvidia tried to ape Nintendo by releasing a… → Read More
Why you probably won’t actually get $125 from the Equifax settlement
If you’re anything like me, you took off like a shot the moment you heard Equifax would pay you $125 just for filling out a simple form. Perhaps you even considered it a reasonable stab at compensation for the fact that the 2017 data breach exposed the personal information of 147 million Americans. But the likelihood that you’ll actually get a check for $125 is increasingly slim — because the… → Read More
Russia targeted election systems in all 50 states, Senate concludes
The U.S. Senate Intelligence Committee has concluded that election systems in all 50 states were targeted by hackers linked to the Russian government, according to a heavily redacted report released today. In 2017, we’d heard 39 states, and the Department of Homeland Security later officially admitted that 21 states had been targeted later that year. → Read More
Blade Runner star Rutger Hauer dies at 75, but his monologue will live forever
On-screen in Blade Runner, his dying words captured our imaginations. Now, he’s left us for real. Dutch actor Rutger Hauer died on Friday at the age of 75, according to reports from Variety and The Hollywood Reporter. His funeral was held today. Here’s the famous Tears in Rain monologue that sparked our imaginations. → Read More
Nintendo will reportedly fix Joy-Con drift for free, even out of warranty
If your Nintendo Switch joysticks are becoming unreliable, pointing your game in random directions even if you haven’t physically pushed them that way, you may be experiencing "Joy-Con Drift." And though Nintendo hasn’t officially admitted to a defect, the company is now quietly repairing the controllers free of charge, according to Vice News. → Read More
Apple, Google, Facebook and Microsoft petition FCC for super-fast Wi-Fi tethering
It’s rare to see Apple, Google, Microsoft, Facebook, HP, Qualcomm, Intel, Broadcom, and Marvell all on the same side of the aisle, but there’s at least one place they publicly agree: they want chips and devices that freely take advantage of a new frontier in Wi-Fi, without pesky licensing or regulatory restrictions — and they’re telling the FCC they’ll need it to bring next-gen AR/VR glasses and… → Read More
Pinterest wants you to take a deep breath, literally
When Pinterest users search the platform for something dreary, the company doesn’t have qualms about stepping in. Today, Pinterest has revealed a new set of “emotional well-being activities” that it will automatically suggest to user who search for phrases that signal that they’re undergoing some anxiety or stress or otherwise feeling bad. → Read More
Samsung Galaxy Tab S6 leak all but confirms the stylus will stick out
The Galaxy Note 10 smartphone may not be the only device Samsung reveals at its August 7th event in New York City — it’ll be joined by a full-size Samsung Galaxy Tab S6 slate with its very own S-Pen stylus, according to Android Headlines. Here’s our first glimpse at the tablet’s stylus and optional keyboard cover with its own Microsoft Surface-like kickstand. → Read More
The flamethrower drone will soon be a thing you can buy
In 2015, a Connecticut teenager raised the question of whether our robots have the right to bear arms when he jury-rigged a working flamethrower — and separately, a semiautomatic pistol — to his drone. But this Thursday, you’ll be able to easily build a flying flamethrower yourself. You’re looking at a the Throwflame TF-19 Wasp, a functional flamethrower attachment for commercial-grade heavy… → Read More
The LG G8 can now tap to pay at practically any magstripe sales terminal in the US
Four years after Samsung introduced a tap-to-pay mobile wallet that works practically anywhere your credit card does — even older magnetic-stripe card readers — and two years after LG started testing it in Korea, LG’s rival LG Pay has finally arrived in the United States. → Read More
Why you should really, really update your Logitech wireless dongle
In 2016, I wrote about the MouseJack hack that let bad actors easily hijack any Logitech wireless mouse or keyboard dongle. Logitech never recalled those wireless receivers, so you’ll need to update them. → Read More