Chances are you’ve received at least one emoji by now even if you aren’t the kind of person who would text a “thumbs up” or send a “rage” face if someone asked you for a quick review of “Batman v. Superman.” That’s why condom maker Durex wants the Unicode Consortium, the nonprofit group that organizes …

Amazon is once again stepping into Google territory — this time by taking on YouTube. If you ever dreamed of having your videos seen by Amazon Prime subsribers, now it can be a reality with Amazon Video Direct. The service lets anyone upload their video, and creators have the option of offering the video for free, charging for it, or …

Want your living room to sound like a movie theater? Definitive Technology’s new line of flagship speakers is designed to bring “object-based” surround sound to your Friday night in. The new collection consists of four floorstanders which include the BP9020, which costs $1,300 per pair. There’s also the BP9040 (which costs $1,800 per pair ), BP9060 ($2,200 per pair) and …

The award-winning Netflix series “Orange is the New Black” is back for season 4 next month. A trailer released Tuesday gives us a hint of what’s to come for the women inside Litchfield Penitentiary. The teaser video blends moments of humor — as Danielle Brooks as Taystee shows off her receptionist skills — with a much more serious side. Early …

Facebook users are apparently fascinated by what it’s like to experience a blizzard in New York. A 360-degree video of a blizzard in Times Square filmed by ABC News is the most-viewed video of the year so far on Facebook’s 360 video feature, according to a top 10 list the social-networking giant released Tuesday. The feature, introduced in September, lets …

WhatsApp is one of the most popular chat apps for smartphones in use today. But to use it on a desktop, you had to run a Web app through your browser. Now the Facebook-owned app is streamlining the process with the launch of a desktop app that syncs with your mobile device. WhatsApp said the new desktop app, which was …

Opera made headlines last month for adding a VPN to its desktop browser, which allows users to bypass region-oriented content blocks while at the same time improving online privacy. Opera VPN for iOS brings those same capabilities to iPhones and iPads, meaning you now have a free, unlimited VPN you can use on the go. Here are three reasons you …

Worried that your iPhone may have been hacked? There’s an app for that. System and Security Info, which debuted over the weekend in Apple’s App Store, provides a host of details about your iPhone. The app shows your CPU, memory and disk usage as well as a list of all running processes. On the security front, it can tell you …

Nearly a year after Facebook Moments launched in the US, the private photo-sharing app has finally made its global debut — but in a stripped-down version. The version released in the US last June uses facial recognition to group together your photos based on the friends who are in them. You can then search by name to find photos of …

Slowly but surely, Pebble’s year-old Time watches keep getting fitness boosts. The latest Pebble Health update, part of a firmware and Pebble app update that arrived today for Android and iOS, adds some welcome features to Time watches (Pebble Time, Time Steel and Pebble Time Round). Automatic tracking of runs and long walks now gets logged in Pebble Health, and …

Uber has expanded its wheelchair-friendly fleet to London, giving disabled customers the power to call a car that features a rear-entry ramp, winch and restraints. The popular cab-calling app, which has proved controversial in the UK, inciting protests from traditional black cabs, has already brought its wheelchair-accessible service, dubbed UberWAV, to more than 10 US cities including Los Angeles, Chicago …

US regulators want to know how mobile phone makers and wireless carriers handle security vulnerabilities and why fixes seem to take so long. The Federal Communications Commission and the Federal Trade Commission on Monday sent letters to fourteen companies, asking for details about how they release security updates. The FCC sent letters to the four major US carriers — AT&T, …

Once you get into the habit of regularly adding events and tasks to your calendar, it can become an irreplaceable asset to your digital organization. But calendars can be used for so much more than scheduling meetings or remembering birthdays. You can subscribe to existing calendars, share calendars with your friends or family or even keep up with when your …

Verizon Wireless’ latest over-the-air update for the Samsung Galaxy S7 and S7 Edge includes a potentially unwanted surprise. The update includes the usual findings — like bug fixes and feature enhancements — but also adds a new app called DT Ignite. Since DT Ignite runs in the background, there’s a good chance you’d never notice it. It’s an app that …

When it comes to artificial intelligence and digital assistants, Dag Kittlaus brings a lot of gravitas to the table: he co-created Siri, which Apple later purchased and made the “voice” of iPhone. And now Kittlaus has co-created what may well be the next generation of Siri: Viv, a new AI startup that aims to replace the app world as we …