In 2016, the National Security Agency gathered 151 million call records even though Congress made rules to reduce the federal government’s sweeping surveillance of Americans’ phone records. A new report shows the NSA might have collected additional call data it wasn’t authorized to obtain again last year. The American Civil Liberties Union released documents on …

HTC has revealed a few more details about its upcoming Vive Cosmos, calling the virtual reality headset its “most impressive” yet. The Cosmos will enable VR at 90 frames per second, and a display with 88% higher resolution than the original HTC Vive. The LCD display will have a 2880×1700 combined resolution. It’ll also have real RGB panels and more …

Best Buy has gaming laptop deals that rival those you’ll find on Amazon as Prime Day draws near. You’ll find discounted mobile rigs right now at Best Buy from Alienware, Asus, Razer and others just as we’re starting to see pre-Prime Day laptop deals on Amazon. You can scope all of Best Buy’s gaming laptops on discount here. Below are …

eBay plans to launch a site-wide Crash Sale on July 15, the same day that Amazon plans to kick off its two-day Prime Day mega-sale. eBay promises deals will offer discounts of up to 80% on a variety of products, including items from Apple, Garmin and Samsung, among others. One might be forgiven for concluding eBay is calling it a …

The Federal Communications Commission has given Verizon permission to lock the new phones it sells to help curtail theft. The agency granted the waiver so the carrier could start locking the phones for a period of 60 days. The lock prevents consumers from swapping out SIM cards and using a phone on another network.  in February when it filed for the waiver, Verizon explained …

Philo, the $20 per month streaming TV service, is heading to Android.  After previously being limited to iOS, TV platforms and in web browsers the company announced Wednesday that it is finally adding a native Android app. The new app will be free to download in the Google Play store and for Amazon’s Fire tablets.  Similar to AT&T Watch TV …

Your Google account is probably the last thing you think about when making your end-of-life plans. The same likely goes for logging off your online life. But it’s a good one to add to the mental list — and it’s something that’s easy to take care of any time. Think about all the photos you have stored that your family …

President Donald Trump’s plan to increase tariffs on goods produced in China would affect a wide range of consumer goods. One gadget that could see a price increase because of a trade war is the video game consoles, and the three biggest companies behind consoles have come together to ask Trump for a pass. Microsoft, Nintendo and Sony sent a …

Lake City isn’t the first local government to pay out hundreds of thousands of dollars to hackers over ransomware, and it’s not likely to be the last. The northern Florida city said Tuesday that it would be paying hackers up to $460,000 in bitcoin to recover its computer systems.  This comes days after Riviera Beach, a Florida city more than …

Looks like Apple is getting more serious about making the iPad into a laptop replacement. At WWDC 2019, its annual developers conference, Apple introduced iPadOS, a dedicated operating system for the iPad that breaks away from some of iOS’ limitations, especially when it comes to productivity.  Apple will release iPadOS this fall as a free software update for the iPad Air 2 and iPad Mini (released …

This year’s Amazon Prime Day, Amazon’s two-day online shopping extravaganza on July 15 and 16, is still weeks away, but it’s already hit a fever pitch across social media sites like Twitter, Facebook, Google, YouTube and all the rest. And when you don’t have Amazon Prime or are absolutely uninterested in membership, seeing every other article talking about it is enough …

I’m sitting on a park bench on a sunny Friday in Randwick, a Sydney suburb just a hop, skip and jump away from Bondi Beach. I’ve stopped to smell the roses like a retiree, except instead of feeding the birds breadsticks I’m perusing the Google Play store for a game. I feel like some chicken dinner. PUBG it is! I …

Apple could owe Samsung Display “hundreds of billions of won” in penalties for not buying enough OLED screens — found in iPhone XS, XS Max and X — due to lackluster iPhone sales, according to Korean outlet ETNews. That’d be about $90 million in fines, which isn’t much to Apple, but could strain on its relationship with the supplier. The …

Instagram head Adam Mosseri said it might start hiding likes as it tries “rethinking the whole experience” of the social media site and fight bullying. He talked to CBS This Morning co-host Gayle King about this new approach — which prioritizes “well-being” — in a Wednesday interview with CBS This Morning co-host Gayle King. “One of the ideas we’re currently …

Instagram is finding new ways to place ads throughout its platform. The social media site said Wednesday that it’ll start putting ads on its Explore page.  Explore shows users photos and videos that match their interests, to help them find new accounts. More than half of Instagram accounts use Explore each month, the company says. In addition, 80% of Instagram’s …