Articles by Kris Holt

Facebook on Thursday added custom gender options for users to identify themselves other than "male" and "female." Users now can identify themselves as bigender, androgynous, cisgender, or in one of more than 50 ways. The move initially applies only to the company's 159 million monthly users in the U.S....

Despite having been declared dead, China's moon rover is showing signs of life. After two weeks of gloomy silence, the Jade Rabbit appears to be up and running again ...

Americans are living in an increasingly digital and mobile world, according to "The Digital Consumer," the latest study published by research firm Nielsen The report determined that Americans now own an average of four digital devices, with average per-person content consumption of 60 hours per week across devices.

Google reportedly has partnered with Foxconn to advance its foray into robotics Foxconn is widely known as the manufacturer of most of Apple's iPhones and iPads. The firm now is working with Google, according to The Wall Street Journal....

Popular smartphone game Flappy Bird has been pulled from Apple's App Store and the Google Play app marketplace by its creator Independent Vietnamese developer Dong Nguyen released the free-to-download game last May having spent only a few nights creating it.

Google is moving into a new market with the launch of its teleconferencing system, Chromebox for Business The system uses the Chrome operating system and is built on Chrome's core tenets of simplicity, speed and security. It marries Google+ Hangouts and Google Apps to allow meeting participants to hold high-definition video meetings with document c...

Not quite content with pushing the boundaries on the level of screen clarity with the vaunted Retina display, Apple apparently is investigating new ways of advancing screen technology The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office on Thursdaypublished three patent applications by Apple that detail its interest in improving the Retina display through the use ...

Google is taking the fight to hackers by increasing the rewards it hands out to researchers who flag vulnerabilities in the company's products Its security reward program now covers additional services including Chrome browser apps and extensions that the company has developed and branded as "by Google."

Satya Nadella on Tuesday took Microsoft's helm as its new CEO. Formerly head of the company's cloud and enterprise division, Nadella replaces the retiring Steve Ballmer Cofounder Bill Gates shed his chairmanship of the company, moving into a new role as technology advisor. John Thompson has taken over as chairman.

This week in 2004, Harvard undergrads became the first group to use Facebook -- the social network launched at the college. Fast-forward a decade, and the company is a technology mammoth, with 1.23 billion users and profit of US$1.5 billion for 2013 Facebook is by most accounts a gargantuan success, and it is putting the pieces in place for its nex...

Microsoft is ready to make its enterprise and cloud head, Satya Nadella, the company's new chief executive officer, and it may replace Bill Gates as chairman, according to press reports Nadella stood out as one of the stronger options to replace retiring CEO Steve Ballmer several weeks ago, according to Bloomberg, but the plans are not yet set in s...

Apple wants to use natural energy sources to keep MacBooks powered while on the move The company has won a patent for a laptop with a lid that features a second display, touch inputs and solar cells. The latter could help users keep their MacBooks' batteries topped up without having to plug in an external charger....

GoDaddy has admitted one of its employees handed out customer information to a scammer who carried out a scheme to obtain a prime Twitter account, according to press reports Naoki Hiroshima, a developer at Echofon, this week detailed how the scammer was able to force him to hand over his prime Twitter account, @N.

Google is making Glass more accessible to consumers who need to wear prescription glasses or prefer to wear their Glass with shades Its new Titanium Collection of frames can accommodate prescription lenses. There are four new styles of frames in the collection: Bold, Curve (pictured below), Thin and Split.

Stratasys is planning to take 3D printing to a new level with the launch of the first color, multimaterial printer The Objet500 Connex3 Color Multi-material 3D Printer, which is now available for purchase through Stratasys' partners, offers design and manufacturing efficiencies and faster production of quality products, according to the company....

Twitter has launched analytics for Twitter Cards to help users determine how well their media-rich tweets are performing on the network ...

Lenovo has struck a deal to acquire IBM's x86 server business The deal, jointly announced Thursday, covers System x; BladeCenter and Flex System blade servers and switches; x86-based Flex integrated systems; NeXtScale and iDataPlex servers and related software; blade networking; and maintenance operations.

A man who wore Google Glass to a movie last weekend was hauled out of the theater and questioned for several hours by federal authorities over piracy concerns The officials took no action against the man after they determined the wearable tech device functioned as his prescription glasses, and that he did not have the Google Glass recording feature...

LG Electronics has revealed initial plans for the rollout of its curved screen LG G Flex handset in the U.S. and Europe ...

Microsoft is rolling out a fix for a troubled firmware update that caused several problems for Surface Pro 2 owners in December Many of those who installed the December patch saw battery-life issues and trouble with the sleep and shutdown functions on the tablets. Some users reported that battery power drained more quickly, and that their Surface e...