What's New

We're starting to get close to July 4th, which makes it an oddly fruitful weekend for tech deals. There are still a few E3 Game and Console Deals going on, and Best Buy's Massive Apple Sale is still happening. Microsoft has already tried to get a head start on competitors with an early Microsoft Store Independence Day Sale, with discounts on Surfaces, Xboxes, and other Microsoft products. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

Google’s clever new AI-powered camera is designed to capture stellar 7-second snippets of family shenanigans. Here’s how to get started. There’s a chip inside the Clips loaded with a version of ­Google’s ­computer vision code. It can learn to recognize faces, so train it to know yours. When you first get the camera, wave and smile at it, and take a lot of selfies and ussies. It can also recognize pets—give your cat plenty of screen time too. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

I'm going to tell you a secret. It's something almost no one in my professional life knows. I'm dyslexic. Given that knowledge, my chosen career—writer—might seem odd. But while I was cursed with poor spelling skills, I’ve always been drawn to storytelling. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

In 1805, Zebulon Pike, a US Army officer and explorer, explored the Louisiana territory his young country had just bought on the cheap, hunting for the source of the mighty Mississippi River. A year later, he led expeditions through the Spanish settlements of New Mexico and Texas. But in November of 1806, he and his men met their match in Colorado, while trying to scale a mountain that towers 8,000 feet above the surrounding region. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

You’ve seen the scene a thousand times: a cop, probably in a trench coat, shows up at the site of a brutal murder or some other crime and starts poking around, trying to figure out what went wrong. It might look like standard gumshoe stuff on TV or in the movies, but crime scene investigation is actually a science—one that Hollywood adaptations often get wrong. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

This Amazon Echo doesn't seem to understand that all I want is a whiskey. I'm seated in the Tribeca offices of marketing firm 360i and the haunting voice coming out of its little speaker just says, "Never heard of it." The problem is that me and 360i's creative director Andrew Hunter both gave the order at the same time and "Rose," our guide at the Mariposa Saloon in this audio play, couldn't make it out. Nevermind, then. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

Testing workout earbuds requires an entirely different set of metrics than regular in-ear headphones. More than anything else, workout earbuds need to stay put. Running is hard enough without constantly flibberting with something in your ear canal. Other factors that might be big pluses when you're sitting at your desk are not so great when you're in motion. Excellent noise filtering is less attractive when you might get mowed down by a cyclist. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

In Ann Arbor, Michigan, last week, 125 mostly white, mostly male, business-card-bearing attendees crowded into a brightly lit ballroom to consider "mobility." That’s the buzzword for a hazy vision of how tech in all forms—including smartphones, credit cards, and autonomous vehicles— will combine with the remains of traditional public transit to get urbanites where they need to go. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

This storyoriginally appeared on The Guardianand is part of theClimate Deskcollaboration. Sea level rise driven by climate change is set to pose an existential crisis to many US coastal communities, with new research finding that as many as 311,000 homes face being flooded every two weeks within the next 30 years. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

Former Mythbusters host Kari Byron says that her young daughter was enthralled by the character Rey in Star Wars: The Force Awakens. “She was just done with princesses when she saw Rey,” Byron says in Episode 313 of the Geek’s Guide to the Galaxy podcast. “Because it was like, OK, this is a smart badass, and I could see that it was so much more interesting to her than a helpless princess that’s locked in a tower. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

If you know the company Square, it's probably because you've paid in a store using a Square “stand,” a dock that supports a tablet, or you've swiped your card through Square Reader, a smartphone dongle that processes payments. These products have a simplistic, decidedly Apple-y aesthetic, from the simple dongle to the all-white stand that typically houses an iPad. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

The great tragedy of the Concept Coupe was that it was never meant to be built. Drawing on the style of the vintage P1800 with a helping of American muscle—healthy haunches, slim windows—the two-door won much praise when Volvo brought it to the 2013 Frankfurt Motor Show. It was lovely, but no more than a showcase. Fans would have to settle for seeing elements of the design feed into Volvo products like the XC90 SUV and S90 sedan. Then the car world shifted. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

It's pretty easy to guess how it works: the pointy end goes in the meat and it connects via Bluetooth with an app on your phone. What's pleasantly surprising is that there's a second temperature sensor at the exposed end that tells you the air temperature just outside of whatever you're cooking. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

On my first attempt at a corner kick in decades, the soccer ball peels up and away, well behind the goal and clear over the fence surrounding Stanton Field, the practice pitch at Santa Clara University. "Not bad," says Brandi Chastain, generously. "You've got good bend, now we just have to make sure we get you in the right direction. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

Finding the perfect summer travel shoe can be an overwhelming task. No one wants to tote around a suitcase full of sneakers and sandals, but it's hard to have fun on vacation with blisters or a limp. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

I stand in front of a lanky two-legged robot stomping along a treadmill. I watch, all impressed, until the researcher next to me tells me to trip it. The thing looks expensive, so I hesitate. Really, he tells me, it’s OK. And he probably knows better than I do, so I drag my boot along its shin like a good soccer trip. The robot stammers, yet recovers. And then again, and again. No matter how much I pester it, the thing just keeps stomping. I keep feeling guilty. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

The self-driving robots are coming to transform your job. Kind of. Also, very slowly. That’s the not-quite-exclamatory upshot of a new report from the Washington, DC-based Securing America’s Future Energy. The group advocates for a countrywide pivot away from oil dependency, one it hopes will be aided by the speedy adoption of electric, self-driving vehicles. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

Say there’s a fire. A fire caused by a car crash, inside a 2.5-mile tunnel under a major American city. It’s a terrifying idea, but if you want that kind of problem to ignite anywhere, it’s in the stretch of State Route 99 that, later this year, will start whisking traffic underneath downtown Seattle. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

Dog owners will go to crazy lengths to make sure that their fur-babies are entertained during the long, boring workday. I’ve frozen wet dog food in red rubber Kongs, or stuffed them full of peanut butter. I’ve hired dog walkers and pet sitters. I’ve turned on DogTV on my Roku. But my dogs were bred to herd cattle or sheep all day, and they still get bored. It’s not like they can read a magazine. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

"People were in dire straights. They were desperate," says Ryan Jensen of the Central Valley's Community Water Center. "Elderly people or people battling chronic illnesses that need water to be able to deal with their health issues had no access to it. There was just absolute desperation." In total, the wells at 300 properties had failed. So a local nonprofit distributed 275-gallon tanks and officials trucked in water. That didn't cut it. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

On Wednesday last week, the nonprofit Natural Resources Defense Council revealed that pig herds in the United States receive almost as many antibiotics as people in this country do. That’s bad news, especially since most of the pigs receiving antibiotics aren’t sick, but instead are getting the drugs to prevent infections in intensive farming. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

In Ensenada, a Mexican city about two hours south of Tijuana, a new crime fighter has taken to the skies. It’s not a bird, or a plane, or Superman. It’s a drone. And over a few months on patrol, it’s had quite the impact. The city’s police department claims the solitary DJI Inspire 1 Quadcopter led to more than 500 arrests and a 10 percent drop in overall crime rates, with a 30 percent drop in home robberies. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

This self-portrait depicts Wu standing before one of the domes at the Svalbard Satellite Station. A fogbow arcs above the dome, and Wu's headlamp casts an eerie pink light on the ground. A fogbow appears above the road on the way to the Svalbard Satellite Station. The station sits above the Arctic Circle at 78 degrees north. When Wu visited Svalbard in October, the sun moved in a shallow arc, kissing the horizon most of the day. The city of Longyearbyen glows in the distance. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

Most of the best Memorial Day tech sales have slowly trickled to an end, but with summer in full swing and new products coming out all the time, there are a surprising number of killer deals this week, including a rare sale on some excellent Google gadgets. With the help of our friends at TechBargains, below are some of our favorite deals going on this week. Google discounts some of its products now and then, but this week four of them have had their prices slashed. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

Before Lyft was Lyft, it was a struggling California startup called Zimride. Cofounder and CEO Logan Green launched it in 2007 (the name was an ode to Zimbabwe’s carpooling culture), aiming to connect college kids who needed rides with those who had cars. John Zimmer, now Lyft’s president, signed on with the idea that putting more people into existing cars could help cities fight emissions and traffic, all at once. In 2012, Zimride spawned Lyft, after Green and Co. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

Six years after a startup called Uber made it easier than ever for anyone to make money driving their car, a startup called Cargo is making it easier than ever for anyone who makes money driving their car to also make money running a convenience store. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

So, I was at Comic-Con International in San Diego in 2008, the year of Twilight and True Blood. I’d never heard of either then—a blind spot, I admit—but that year something changed. Women have always attended SDCC, of course, but this year the lines switchbacking outside Hall H, the high altar of the annual nerd pilgrimage, were majority female for the first time I'd ever seen. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

Just six months after joining Apple, Sal Soghoian's job was already on the line. In July of 1997, then-CEO Gil Amelio had just been ousted and the company's stock was plummeting. To right the ship, Apple brought Steve Jobs back as the company's interim CEO. When Jobs took over, he went on a campaign to salvage Apple's remaining resources by hacking and slashing under-performing departments. The problem, Jobs said, was that Apple had lost its focus. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

Elon Musk is tweeting up a storm, and he’s loving every minute of it. With 21 million followers, Musk has emerged as one of the defining Twitter voices of 2018, someone who will happily and democratically engage with anybody who @s him. Like other gazillionaires before him—Rupert Murdoch, Marc Andreessen—he’s found in Twitter a fun and unfiltered platform for self-expression. Unlike Murdoch and Andreessen, however, he’s still at it. And he needs to be stopped. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

What do you look like when you’re excited? How about a little nervous? Bored? Full-on freaked out? If you happen to hop on one of the two very special shuttles that are now running one-mile loops around the University of Michigan’s North Campus, a bunch of people with fancy degrees may very soon find out. Those shuttles, you see, will drive themselves. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

Christie Hemm Klok’s 3-year-old son couldn't get enough of firefighters. He had a toy engine truck, a plastic helmet he wore all the time, and a collection of books showing firefighters dousing fires and saving lives. But most of them were men, and the lack of women bugged Hemm Klok. "There was maybe one female in any of the books," she says, "and she had short hair and maybe a pink shirt on." Hemm Klok wanted to show her son a more inclusive vision of the world. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

Ready for the summer? We are! Whether you have road trips, camping, or other outdoor activities coming up, it's a great idea to bring a computer or tablet with you. Throw your itinerary in a doc, use it for editing photos on the go, and post your latest brilliant missive to your blog once you get to the hotel. We have discounts on a Lenovo notebook and an awesome Apple iPad that are worth looking at. But, then again, maybe you're more of an indoor person. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

The scooters have disappeared from San Francisco. In anticipation of regulations that took effect today, Bird, Lime Bike, and Spin have warehoused their fleets of the shared electric two-wheelers. They won’t be able to redeploy them unless the city grants them a special permit, which could take the better part of the month. Good riddance, many will say. The city should cap their numbers, control their behavior, or, better yet, incinerate the whole lot. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

The internet makes sense in metaphors. Superhighways, clouds, pages, links. Facebook is a town square. Wikipedia, a kind of brain. So what about 4chan, the imageboard site where users post just about anything, with anonymity and impunity? If you trust 4channers themselves, it’s the internet’s soul. 4chan has never been a nice place. Most people don’t spend time there, but most people feel its effects, everything from fake news to doxing. Outsiders prefer different metaphors: Cesspool. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

A tidal wave of change is barreling toward the auto industry—and as with any wicked swell, some of the surfers in the water will ride to glory, others will wipe out. The difference between them isn’t necessarily who has the right board or the experience or the natural skills. Success or failure can simply depend on who’s in the right position to catch the wave. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

People seeking a set of wheels traditionally had two options: buy or lease. But the advent of ride hailing turned the next generation of drivers into backseat riders. Now app-based subscriptions—think car sharing that’s paid by the month, not the hour—are vying for consumers who fall between Uber addicts and car owners. Car sharing is projected to grow globally from 5.8 million users in 2015 to 35 million by 2021, according to Boston Consulting Group. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

First off, let's get one thing straight: The "console wars" don't exist. The idea that Sony's PlayStation and Microsoft's Xbox are engaged in some kind of dogged, winner-take-all battle is both outdated and toxic. It lets fans indulge in the idea that they're noble partisans, which in turn gives them an excuse to say offensive things about their so-called opponents. The videogame market is a big one, and has more than enough space for multiple game devices from multiple manufacturers. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

The NES Classic Mini is an elusive little beast. The teeny tiny Nintendo Entertainment System packed with 30 classic 8-bit games originally hit store shelves in late 2016 ... and promptly sold out. It's been nigh impossible to find ever since, and was sent off into the sunset in favor of Nintendo's Super NES Classic. We weren't thrilled with Nintendo's decision to discontinue it. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

On Sunday night, around the same time Westworld hit HBO and Game 7 of the NBA Eastern Conference Finals aired on ESPN, people watched the season finale of Killing Eve. A lot of people. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

Going on vacation? You probably already know how to set an out-of-office auto reply for your email. That's great for letting your coworkers know that no, you cannot make it to that meeting, because you're off sipping mojitos and sunbathing in the Caribbean. But what about when your friends text you? There used to be easier ways of telling people we were "away" from your devices. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

In medicine, false positives are expensive, scary, and even painful. Yes, the doctor eventually tells you that the follow-up biopsy after that bloop on the mammogram puts you in the clear. But the intervening weeks are excruciating. A false negative is no better: “Go home, you’re fine, those headaches are nothing to worry about. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

So, Solo: A Star Wars Story is finally in theaters. It’s fun! It might not be blowing up the box office, but folks are still seeing it in droves and when they do they’re in for a really nice time. (Alden Ehrenreich is a fun, swaggering Han Solo; Donald Glover is a sexy, swaggering Lando Calrissian; Phoebe Waller-Bridge is a smartass, swaggering droid.) They’re also in for at least one big surprise—and a few slightly smaller delights. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

Despite many developers’ efforts to teach cars to steer themselves around roads filled with human drivers, pedestrians, and cyclists, the first great wave of autonomous vehicles may not arrive on land. Instead, it might follow the time-honored tradition of running away from tricky problems by heading for the open seas. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

Don’t leave your latest gaming obsession at your desk. With these powerful laptops, you can level up wherever, whenever. The newest Blade laptop comes with top-tier Nvidia graphics, a quad-core Intel processor, and an optional 14-inch, 4K touchscreen. Razer’s customizable Chroma LED system lets you choose the color and animation style of your keyboard backlighting, so the Blade looks as good as it games. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

If you’re looking for attention, drive an American muscle car, like a Chevrolet Camaro. The unmistakable exhaust growl of a V8 turns heads pretty quickly. If you’re desperate for attention, you can try what I did on Tuesday, and drive one covered in red, black, and grey racing stripes and 60-odd sponsor logos—through packed Hollywood streets. But as I turned through the intersection at Hollywood and Highland, none of the tourists looked up from the Walk of Fame. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

Prepping for a big presentation is stressful, and your boss isn’t making it any better. He’s leering at your coworker Rachel in the middle of a meeting (!), asking if she’s bringing a date to the company dinner (!!). I mean, what do you do? Say something? Take it to HR? Talk to Rachel? Every choice feels kinda wrong—even though you’re just seeing all this in a virtual-reality headset. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

When you set up a Wi-Fi-enabled robot vacuum, you’re usually required to name it. Sometimes, this seems like a cheesy and pointless affectation, like those people who spend ages trying to think of clever monikers for their wireless network. I don't name my dishwasher or my air purifier. Maybe robot vacuum manufacturers are trying to make you feel a little better about spending such an outrageous sum on a household appliance. But truthfully, you get pretty darn attached to the things. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

Memorial Day may be a sacred holiday to honor our fallen veterans, but somehow it's also become a major weekend for tech and appliance sales because it unofficially kicks off the summer season. We've already rounded up our favorite Memorial Day Camping Gear and below are a bunch of PC, TV, audio, mobile, and home tech sales that caught our eye. And hey, if you're looking for a true bargain, you can still nab a full year of WIRED Magazine and Web access for $5. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

If anyone is destined to be the Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, it’s Emilia Clarke. As the woman who plays Daenerys "Mother of Dragons" Targaryen on Game of Thrones, she’s got more of a right to sport dragon ink than anyone. Well, it turns out, she’s got one in the works. That’s not the only one; the star of Solo: A Star Wars Story is also thinking about getting a Chewbacca tat, too. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

What even happened this past week? Sure, there was that brief, glorious moment when people cared about whether a sound clip said one word or the other. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices