Black
Latest
Kendrick Lamar's latest music video includes deepfakes of Will Smith and Kanye
The latest Kendrick Lamar video is full of deepfakes that include Kanye West, Will Smith and Nipsey Hussle.
Apple marks Black History Month with a 'Black Unity' watch strap
Apple is celebrating Black History Month 2022 with a limited-run Watch strap and a free face to match.
Nothing's 'Black Edition' brings a modern touch to its funky Ear 1 buds
Nothing has unveiled the new Ear 1 "Black Edition" that retains the original's transparent case, but adds a smoky finish and black matte colorway
Apple announces an Entrepreneur Camp for Black Founders and Developers
The program is part of Apple's $100 million Racial Equity and Justice Initiative.
Man sues police over a facial recognition-related wrongful arrest
Nijeer Parks says he spent 10 days in jail after he was falsely identified as a shoplifter.
YouTube's Black Voices Fund announces its first five original works
In July, YouTube announced a $100 million fund tasked with “amplifying” Black voices. Today, the site revealed the first five shows it is funding.
NASA names its DC headquarters after its first Black female engineer
From this point forward, NASA’s Washington DC headquarters will be known as the Mary W. Jackson NASA Headquarters, named after the agency’s first Black female engineer.
Facebook pledges $200 million to support Black-owned businesses
Facebook plans to spend $200 million to support Black-owned businesses and organizations.
YouTube will 'amplify' Black creators with a $100 million fund
YouTube is creating a $100 million multi-year fund dedicated to Black creators, artists and their stories.
Criterion will stream notable titles by black filmmakers for free
Criterion Collection announced a few steps it’s taking to fight systemic racism, including lifting the paywall on select titles from black filmmakers.
MIT scientists accidentally create the blackest material ever
Good news for goths -- black somehow just got even blacker. MIT engineers have cooked up a material that's 10 times blacker than anything else previously reported. Capturing more than 99.995 percent of any incoming light, the material is made of vertically aligned carbon nanotubes (CNTs) grown on chlorine-etched aluminium foil. And it was discovered by accident.
Facebook plans to double its minority employees in the next five years
Facebook is more diverse than it was six years ago, but the company admits it has a long way to go. Today, Facebook released its 2019 Diversity Report, and while it employs more women and minorities than it did a few years ago, it's still predominantly male. In the US, the majority of its employees are White or Asian. But those numbers are expected to change. In the next five years, Facebook hopes at least half of its workforce will be women, under-represented minorities, people with disabilities and veterans.
Play the first set of original Xbox games on the Xbox One tomorrow
In terms of new software, Microsoft doesn't have much to offer Xbox One owners this holiday unless you want to play the fourth Forza in as many years. What it does have though, are a baker's dozen of games from the original Xbox. Some we already knew about like Crimson Skies: High Road to Revenge and Xbox launch title Fuzion Frenzy, but there are a few surprises as well.
Facebook is slowly becoming less white and less male
Facebook's latest diversity stats are in, and it seems that while the process is glacially-slow, the company is becoming less white and less male. In the last year, the number of women in tech has risen from 17% to 19%, with women accounting for 27% of all new graduate hires in engineering and 21% of all new technical hires. The number of Hispanics at the company has increased from 4% to 5%, while the number of black people has risen from 2% to 3%. These figures don't represent a particularly impressive move forward from last year, but they are in many cases much better than they were in 2014. According to a blog post by the company, much of this "success" can be attributed to a range of diversity-focused programs, designed to eradicate the White Boys' Club mentality that has long-plagued Facebook's boardrooms.
GoPro's Hero5 Black and Session bring overdue improvements
Recently, GoPro unveiled an entirely new product lineup. Not just the new Hero5 Black ($399) and Hero5 Session ($299), but also the Karma drone, a surprise hand-held gimbal -- known as the Karma Grip -- and a brand new cloud service called GoPro Plus. While it's going to be another week or so before we can get our hands on the Karma drone, I had a chance to spend some time with the new flagship Hero5 Black and its sidekick, the Hero5 Session. Both come with some exciting, long-awaited new features, which I'll lay out in detail below. With many of the upgrades addressing common pain points, it's clear that this year, GoPro was mainly focused on polishing the user experience.
GoPro's 'Omni' VR camera rig officially unveiled
It was almost a year ago we learned that GoPro was planning a spherical camera rig for VR. Back then, that was pretty much all we knew. The announcement came at the same time that CEO Nick Woodman confirmed the rumors his company was working on a drone (that we're still eagerly waiting for). We'd seen some prototypes of the rig before, but it wasn't until February, GoPro gave finally it a name: Omni. Today, for the first time, we get to see what the final product actually looks like (hint, much like the last prototype as most of the updates are internal, but that's it above). And we've got a sample of the sort of image you might expect from it below.
Acaia's Bluetooth scale tracks your morning coffee ritual
I'll admit it: I'm a coffee snob. I wasn't even that invested until I became friends with two roasters. Fast forward a few years and I have equipment in my kitchen for six different brewing methods. Yes, it's a bit much. However, that still didn't stop me from being enticed by the Acaia Pearl Bluetooth-equipped scale, which aims to make the daily ritual as consistent and accurate as possible. Do you really need a $129 gadget to help you make better coffee, though? Or will a cheap kitchen scale and timer do the job just fine? After a few weeks with the priciest "Pearl Black" model, which sells for $150, I'm not ready to give up my budget gear just yet.
Scientists made the blackest material ever
Scientists may have made a breakthrough in materials that can help manipulate light at nanoscale, but is it really, really, really black? No. Researchers at Saudi Arabia's King Abdulla University of Science and Technology have created a carbon-nanotube material that absorbs 98 to 99 percent of light (at all angles) between 400 and 1,400nm. But there's actually a reason why something that black needs to exist. These absorbers take on important roles when it comes to solar power absorption and optical interconnects, where fiberoptic data is being passed around. Researchers were able to put a small concentration of their special nanoparticles into a solution, which gave 26 percent more absorption than carbon nanotube -- the previous prince of (material) darkness. For now, there's none more black.
When it comes to GoPro's new Hero4 camera, silver is the new black
GoPro cameras have come a long way in the last couple of years. Not only are they a lot smaller (my once "slick" HD Hero2 looks enormous compared to the new Hero4), but also the resolution they can record has finally reached full 30 fps 4K. Not bad considering I don't even own a 4K TV yet. Sure, there are phones that can record 4K, but not with the same versatility and control of an action camera. GoPros have actually recorded 4K (albeit only at 12 fps) since the Hero3, but it's taken until now to deliver a decent frame rate without severely compromising the (already medicore) battery life. This means the company has possibly reached something of a glass ceiling when it comes to its top-billing feature (resolution). Maybe we'll see 8K next year, or 4K at 60 fps, but I honestly feel most of us are a long way from either wanting, let alone needing that. So what's a camera company to do?
Another Apple event, still no new black MacBook
I want a black MacBook, you want a black MacBook, we all want black MacBooks, so where is our black MacBook? We got a lot of cool things at yesterday's special event, including an über iMac, a more powerful yet less expensive Mac mini, and of course the new version of OS X you definitely installed overnight. What we didn't get is a darker MacBook. At this point, I fear we may get a gold MacBook before Apple decides to add "Space Grey" -- let's be honest, it's basically black -- to the MacBook lineup. For now, at least, we'll have to keep dreaming. [Photo credits: Admartinator, Francescopozzi, Pedrokid]
