Are you going to buy a virtual reality headset? Seriously. Are you? I’m not the only one who wants to know. The VR industry is having an awkward moment. Though headset makers have spent years and billions of dollars promising world-changing technology, relatively few of us have actually lined up to buy them. That sales …

By some estimates, there are as many as 7,000 languages on the planet and many of us just speak one of them.  That’s led to a cottage industry of Hollywood dream-technology like the babel fish from “Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy,” or the always-there computers on “Star Trek.” In the real world, we’ve fallen a bit short of that promise. …

Over the past couple of episodes, we’ve talked about how photos affect our lives and issues around publishing them to the web. But the biggest problem I keep hearing about is where to safely store all these memories we create. Do we keep them on our computers? Do we back them up to the cloud? Should we pay someone to …

Ten years ago, Steve Jobs stood on a stage in San Francisco and promised, “Apple is going to reinvent the phone.” That turns out to have been the understatement of the decade. Though Apple certainly wasn’t the first to make a mobile phone, or even the first to use touchscreen technology, the iPhone’s blend of slickly designed hardware and software …

I geeked out big time when Steve Jobs announced the first iPhone. It was Jan. 9, 2007, a Tuesday, and I raced into the Apple Store in Arlington, Virginia, where I worked, to gush over the news. A magical software keyboard! A stylus-free touchscreen! In a world of slow, clunky, button-laden phones with pens and scroll wheels, the iPhone appeared …

Sometimes life imitates art. In this case, a storyline from a hit spy show is leaping off the screen and could potentially turn deadly. The FDA sent notice Tuesday that nearly half a million pacemakers from the health company Abbott (formerly St. Jude Medical) are vulnerable to being hacked and need a software update to protect them. These devices are …

Online maps have already changed the way we move around in the world. But now, a project called U-Flood promises to show us exactly how bad the flooding from Hurricane Harvey really is. The project, by consultants at the environmental firm Marine Weather and Climate and the tech company Tailwind Labs, is an interactive map of flooding in Houston as well …

What’s the hashtag for being hacked? Instagram, the 700 million-user-strong photo sharing service owned by Facebook, informed some users Wednesday that hackers gained access to phone numbers and emails of high-profile accounts. The attack came through Instagram’s API, or its software that allows other sites and apps to connect with it.  The company said the bug was fixed within a …

Maybe Amazon just wants more braiiiiinnnnnssssss? The e-commerce giant, which also makes clothing, tablets, television shows and pretty much anything else you can think of, has signed a deal with Robert Kirkman’s Skybound Entertainment, the entity behind the hit apocalyptic zombie shows “The Walking Dead” and “Fear The Walking Dead.”  The deal, announced Friday, will have the team develop television …

Have you looked at your speaker before and thought “Gosh, I wish I could buy one of these from Facebook.” Well, whether you have or not, DigiTimes says Facebook is working on a speaker of its own. The device, which according to rumors will include a 15-inch touchscreen, is slated for release in early 2018. A Facebook spokeswoman declined to …