SYDNEY, Australia — Google threatened to disable its search engine in Australia if it’s forced to pay local publishers for news, a dramatic escalation of a months-long standoff with the government.

The proposed law, intended to compensate publishers for the value their stories generate for the company, is “unworkable,” Mel Silva, ...Read more

“Scott Pilgrim vs. the World” is one of my favorite movies, but I’m ashamed to say that I never played the video game launched alongside the film. That’s like saying you loved the “Star Wars” trilogy but never checked out any of the games tied to the universe.

I was missing part of the picture, but by the time I got around to ...Read more

February is set to be a big month for Nintendo as the company marks milestones for two big franchises.

The first one celebrates 35 years of the “Super Mario Bros.” franchise, which has become a company cornerstone. To mark the occasion, Nintendo revealed more details about “Super Mario 3D World + Bowser’s Fury,” an enhanced version ...Read more

Less than 72 hours after a brief online exchange with the world's wealthiest tech mogul, Miami Mayor Francis Suarez was still crowing about the moment Wednesday morning.

"When you're tweeting with Elon Musk at 4 o'clock in the morning — and you have the county mayor getting involved as well — you know that something special is going on," a ...Read more

Insurers increased their use of catastrophe models, drones and mobile apps during the COVID-19 pandemic, and they anticipate growth in such technology to continue once the health crisis passes.

Some growth in what is known as “insurtech” was driven by the social distancing measures and quarantines that accompanied the pandemic, while ...Read more

“Your vehicle, your sanctuary” was a theme at the virtual CES show of new electronics and entertainment equipment last week. Pandemic shutdowns have accelerated the years-long trend for vehicles to double as home theaters and offices on wheels.

Cadillac showed the unfortunately toaster-y Personal Autonomous Vehicle, a concept for a self-...Read more

Q: My iPhone XS Max uses the RoboKiller app that's supposed to intercept junk phone calls. I expected it to block the 15 to 25 junk calls I was getting every day, but to let through callers who were in my phone's contact list. Unfortunately, RoboKiller blocks calls from my contacts list and lets the junk calls through. I also can't remove the ...Read more

Additive manufacturing and computer design experts, the Air Force needs your ideas.

As part of a national effort to harness the speed and flexibility of additive manufacturing — often called "3D printing" — the Air Force this month issued a call for a "cutting-edge automated 3-D scanning system" that can quickly scan complex parts to ...Read more

Recently, a reader wrote: “I got a notification on my iPhone that some of my passwords have appeared in a data leak and that I should change them. They are under my iPhone settings/passwords/security notifications. Do you know what this is?

Is it phishing? How does Apple know this or is it discovered by another company? How serious is it? ...Read more

Charging is not something we want to do — we do it because it’s critical. And often we want it now, we want it fast, cable-free and safe.

Most people have a lot of power-hungry devices, a collection that probably only increased during the past holiday season. But just because they need a charge doesn’t make all the devices and their ...Read more

While 2020 upended a lot of norms, I do not expect to see a major decline in the number of people who resolved to get in better shape as the calendar rolled over to a new year. What might be different, however, is an increase in people looking for ways to work out alone and away from a gym.

As an introverted geek, I have long been a proponent...Read more

Want to really listen to your record collection or just have better-quality sound from your music streaming account? True audiophiles will find that full-size around-ear or over-ear headphones are superior to the ubiquitous earbud. They're better at filtering out background noise, have superior audio quality (and better bass) and surround your...Read more

SEATTLE — Female orcas are most thrown off from foraging when boats and vessels intrude closer than 400 yards, according to new research — troubling findings for the endangered population of southern resident orcas that desperately needs every mother and calf to survive.

The research, gathered by attaching suction-cup electronic tags to the...Read more

In a bid to boost the horsepower of its mobile silicon, Qualcomm said Tuesday that it plans to buy a Bay Area semiconductor startup Nuvia, founded by key former Apple chip designers, for $1.4 billion.

The move highlights Qualcomm's efforts to deliver top performing core processors not only for Android smartphones but also for laptops, connected...Read more

The University of Minnesota aims to become a hub of bioindustrial manufacturing through a new multimillion dollar partnership partially funded by the U.S. Department of Defense.

The U's Board of Regents last week approved an agreement to host the Bioindustrial Manufacturing and Design Ecosystem (BioMADE), an effort affiliated with the federal ...Read more

Debates about content moderation, especially on social media, have been a background hum throughout Donald Trump's presidency. Early criticisms of his tone and comportment on the campaign trail morphed into more tangible worries about what a smartphone-happy commander in chief meant for America (Did he just threaten nuclear war in a tweet?) and ...Read more

Monos' new powered Kiyo UVC Water Bottle ensures people on the go have clean, purified drinking water. According to Monos, the UVC kills up to 99.9 percent of bacteria and other pathogens lurking inside the water. They also hope each Kiyo bottle can eliminate more than 100 plastic bottles per year for each user.

The travel-ready bottle is ...Read more

I had a few emails from readers asking about the end of Adobe Flash and what they should do about it.

In case you don’t know, Adobe Flash is a piece of software that web developers used to place animations, audio and video on websites.

It was great at first, but then it was found to be a big security hole for hackers to exploit.

Adobe ...Read more