So you thought a Terminator-like future of metal machines mowing each other down on battlefields sounded pretty cool, did you?

Well, wipe that smile off your face, fleshy one. Killer robots are a real threat to our future and must be outlawed now, according to a campaign launched in London on Tuesday by five international NGOs, led by Human Rights Watch.

The Campaign to Stop Killer Robots — yes, that is its real name, and you can find its website here — calls for a comprehensive ban on the development, production, and use of fully autonomous weapons. The launch event came a month in advance of a UN report on the subject, set to be delivered to the Human Rights Council in Geneva on May 27. Read more...

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Superman fans who want to see "Man of Steel" one day early can do so at Walmart, which has partnered with Warner Bros to sell tickets for an advance screening of the movie.

The tickets will become available May 18 on 8AM ET in more than 3,700 Walmart stores, according to The Hollywood Reporter.

The special screening will take place on June 13 — that's one day before the movie's official premiere

“Walmart’s premiere of Man of Steel once again proves we have the ambition and studio partnerships to develop unique retail programs that give our customers access to the movies they love,” said Walmart U.S. senior vp entertainment Laura Phillips in a statement. Read more...

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The trailer for Sofia Coppola's latest directorial effort, The Bling Ring, is making waves after hitting the interwebs Tuesday

Inspired by real-life events, the film follows a group of fame-obsessed teens who rob the homes of celebrities, including Paris Hilton, Lindsay Lohan and Megan Fox

Actress Emma Watson puts on an American accent for her role as Nicki, a seemingly vapid member of the "ring." Viewers who are familiar with Watson through her work on the Harry Potter series will see her in an entirely different light — if the frenetic trailer is any indication, Nicki is no Hermione Granger Read more...

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It seems HTC One will not be the only Android flagship that suffered from the delay flu this year, at least on some carriersT-Mobile has announced that Samsung Galaxy S 4 will be available on April 29 instead of April 24 as was originally planned

"We know customers are really looking forward to getting their new Samsung Galaxy S 4 soon. However, due to an unexpected delay with inventory deliveries, the Galaxy S 4 will not be available on www.T-Mobile.com as planned on Wednesday, April 24. Instead, online availability is expected to begin on Monday, April 29. We apologize for any inconvenience and are working with Samsung to deliver the device to T-Mobile customers as soon as possible," wrote T-Mobile in a statement. Read more...

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The Internet industry in Pakistan is at an extremely exciting point, and the outlook for local entrepreneurs and venture capitalists is strong in the mid to long run

As the sixth largest country in the world in terms of population, Pakistan has an ever-expanding web base which currently stands at 22 million users, with 8 million now on Facebook.

With such a wide array of currently undeveloped markets to compete in, the need for online stores will only increase over the course of time. When one further considers the high cost of establishing a traditional brick-and-mortar store, one realizes the advantages to which online entrepreneurs are privy. Read more...

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Twitter is currently testing two-factor authentication, and plans to roll it out to users soon, according to a report

The microblogging network is conducting internal tests before gradually debuting the security measure site-wide, Wired reported Tuesday night.

Also known as "two-step verification," two-factor authentication prevents fraud by forcing users to provide two pieces of information that will verify their identity. Bank customers, for example, must provide both a physical card and PIN number

The reports come just after The Associated Press' Twitter account (using the handle @AP) was hacked earlier Tuesday. A tweet sent from the account falsely alleged that there were two explosions in the White House, and that U.S. President Barack Obama had been injured. Hackers called the Syrian Electronic Army took credit for the incident Read more...

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Alongside the buzz about Twitter becoming our primary source of news is the realization that not everything you read on the microblogging network can be trusted. Usually, this is because people are too quick to tweet without verifying facts, but sometimes it's because the person behind the tweets isn't who you think they are

This is exactly what happened to the Associated Press on Tuesday, when the wire service's Twitter account @AP was hacked, and sent out a false tweet about the White House and U.S. President Barack Obama

Recently, a number of prominent Twitter accounts, including those of 60 minutes and CBS News were reportedly hacked by Syria. While I don't know how the AP's account was hacked, or who did it, I do know that it should not be happening. Read more...

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Samsung's Galaxy S III was one of the most successful Android smartphones of all time, but is the Galaxy S4 a worthy successor?

In a word: yes. The Galaxy S4 manages to build on the framework that helped Samsung sell over 100 million Galaxy S III devices in under 12 months, and it packs in new features and better specs to keep it competitive with the likes of the HTC One and other high-end Android devices.

Reviewing the Galaxy S4 isn't an easy task. That isn't because the phone is bad — far from it — but there are so many new features in both software and hardware, it's hard to know where to start and when to stop talking. Read more...

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There are touchscreen displays and 3D displays, but now there’s one that combines the two: a flexible screen that users can pinch, poke and stretch.

The screen, designed by Dhairya Dand and Rob Hemsley, both of MIT’s Media Lab, is called Obake, named after a shape-shifting spirit of Japanese myth. It’s comprised of a flexible rubber sheet laid over a set of actuators. The whole thing sits under a camera built from a Kinect projector that beams images onto the sheet. The camera also measures how deep the screen is poked into it or how far its stretched.

Read more...

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Are keyboard phones still relevant? For BlackBerry, a company that practically invented the QWERTY phone, the answer could prove pivotal to its future. You can see how much BlackBerry understands that when you pick up the Q10, the first phone with a physical keyboard to run BlackBerry 10.

Put simply, the BlackBerry Q10 is the best keyboard phone you can buy today

Put simply, the BlackBerry Q10 is the best keyboard phone you can buy today. It's a gorgeous piece of hardware with state-of-the-art smartphone technology, which the keyboard interacts with in some very useful ways. QWERTY keyboard fans will really enjoy the Q10 — even more since it ships with BlackBerry 10.1, the latest software. Read more...

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By now, you're familiar with the cinnamon challenge. Maybe you know someone brave enough to ingest a spoonful of cinnamon on film. Or perhaps you were foolhardy enough to try it yourself. There's even a chance you heard about some of its health risks

But you can still get your kicks without endangering your health. And heaven knows YouTube is the place to embarrass yourself — er, experiment

These 10 challenges replace cinnamon with an equal amount of hacking, gagging or worse. Among the videos you won't see listed here: the Taco Bell challenge, the Greek yogurt and root beer challenge or the condom challenge (we can't advocate suffocating yourself with a strip of latex) Read more...

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Nike updated its Nike+ FuelBand app Tuesday to include the ability to share more information about a workout with Facebook friends.

Users can now capture photos of their workout, such as a view from the top of a hill they just climbed, or spring flowers blooming along a running route. They can also include the location of their workout, as well as friends they had along for the journey.

Users also have the option of customizing photos by adding their current NikeFuel score and the Nike+ logo to them.

Competitive Nike+ users can now challenge friends using Facebook, Nike+ or the contact list on their mobile phone, and keep track of where they stand on a customizable leaderboard. Read more...

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An Indian cricket team will introduce augmented reality-enhanced tickets for its fans next month. The Royal Challengers Bangalore are just the latest of a handful of sports clubs to use the still-emerging technology, but this may be most useful implementation yet

When fans of the Indian Premier League team activate the features, they will not only be able to access highlights and other hype, but practical uses, as well.

Live traffic updates from areas surrounding M. Chinnaswamy Stadium in Bangalore, parking information and a call-a-cab tool are all designed to make getting to and from the game as easy as possible. Other features include a 3D stadium view, team store and video highlights Read more...

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There are many ways to measure your life, like achieving milestones, tracking your bank account and even seeing how tall you grow. But what about observing the size and shape of your bike?

In this comic, Grant Snider of Incidental Comics illustrates the various stages of life through tricycles, bicycles and more. Which one are you currently riding?

You can purchase Snider's comics as prints through his poster shop.

Comic illustration by Grant Snider, Incidental Comics. Published with permission; all rights reserved. Read more...

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Robot Combat League, Syfy's new reality series pitting 12 expensive, 8-feet-tall humanoid machines against each other in tournament-style face-offs, ends Tuesday night with the final two robots. And while this season lasted only three months, it has been years in the making.

"I really couldn't believe how technologically advacnced they were," Chris Jericho, the show's host and popular WWE wrestler, told Mashable. "It's like being attacked by a Terminator. If you got hit by one of these things it would literally cave your head in."

"We've never seen this before in the history of anything." Read more...

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If there's one thing the Internet loves, it's cat videos. If there's another, it's people getting dunked on.

In that spirit, the world's premier basketball league recently released its countdown of this season's top 10 NBA dunks. It's no surprise the compilation has been a hit, registering more than 1 million views since appearing on the NBA's wildly popular YouTube channel late last week.

The video's five days old now, but with the NBA playoffs in full swing, is still worth sharing. It includes this amazing Los Angeles Clippers alley-oop, as well as the violent DeAndre Jordan dunk that spawned a million memes. Did your favorite slam make the cut? Let us know in the comments, below Read more...

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In an effort to be a safer driver, many people, myself included, have started using voice-to-text mobile apps like Siri to keep two hands on the steering wheel

However, a new study by the Texas A&M Transportation Institute finds using voice-to-text apps to send and receive text messages while driving don't increase driver safety.

Christine Yager, who headed up the research, tells Mashable there were no distinguishable differences between manual texters and voice texters

"We did not find any differences between manual texting and the two voice-to-text apps that we tested in terms of driver response time and the amount of time looking at the forward roadway." Read more...

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With weeks of speculation, rumor-mongering and paranoid misinformation leaks, the NFL Draft is riddled by smoke screens and uncertainty

But what if social media holds all the true answers?

That's the premise of some algorithmic number-crunching done by the online marketing company iProspect. The firm tracked mentions on Facebook, Twitter, blogs, message boards and other platforms of the draft's top prospects. It kept tabs on which players were mentioned the most with which teams, then matched those results up to the NFL's draft order to project the first 10 players selected

Read more...

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A new mobile app called Focus Twist mimics the experience of Lytro’s focus-shift technology on your iPhone, allowing you to change the focal point of a photo after snapping a shot.

To create a photo, the app captures a number of different images of the same scene, focusing on a different object in each one. Once completed, you’re able to tap on different parts of the image – much like you can with an image captured with the Lytro camera – to change the focus.

Finished images can be shared on Twitter, as well as with the Focus Twist community. Images are shared as links to Focus Twist's website, where visitors can interact with them. Check out an image I took here. Read more...

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Image via Rob Kim/Getty Images

Alright, Internet, you had your fun today with hipper-than-hip hipsters and meme faces, but now the time has come to go home.

Robert De Niro met Lil Bub. Yes, the legendary actor rubbed whiskers with the Internet's cutest cat

Image via Rob Kim/Getty Images

De Niro and Bub swapped stories about working with diva felines and playing second fiddle to Jennifer Lawrence. (None of that is true.) The two big screen stars met at the Directors Brunch during the Tribeca Film Festival

On meeting De Niro, Lil Bub reportedly said, "Are you meowing at me?"

Read more...

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Apple had a good day. The market cheered the company's fiscal second quarter results despite the fact that the company's year-over-year profits declined for the first time since 2003

However, the big picture for Apple isn't as rosy. The company's stock price is down about a third over the past six months, Apple has lost its designation as the world's most valuable company and margins are on a downward trend. Apple's share of the worldwide smartphone market is 20% vs. 70% for Google's Android. Apple still has a commanding lead in tablets, but, if the fate of the iPhone is any guide, then the iPad's lead should also winnow away over time. Read more...

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Don't hold your breath for any big Apple product launches this summer.

Apple's CEO Tim Cook suggested during the March quarter earnings call Tuesday that the company will not be releasing any new products until the fall. "Our teams are hard at work on some amazing new hardware, software and services we can't wait to introduce this fall and throughout 2014," Cook said.

When asked to clarify later in the call whether this meant no new products would come during the summer, Cook remained somewhat vague. "I dont want to be more specific, but I'm just saying we've got some really great sutff coming in the fall and across all of 2014." Read more...

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Women in information technology jobs are earning roughly the same salaries as their male counterparts, provided they share equal levels of experience and education and parallel job titles, a recent report found. Now, a new report shows the number of women in IT jobs is also on the rise.

Dice.com’s Tech Trends for the first quarter of 2013 indicates that while women still only make up 31% of the IT workforce, this year has marked some notable job growth for women in the field. According to Bureau of Labor Statistics data, 46% of new tech positions have been awarded to women since the start of 2013. Read more...

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The endlessly addictive Tetris may be good for the treatment of lazy eye, according to a study released by McGill University scientists. The act of following Tetris pieces down the screen causes both eyes to work together, the Montreal-based team wrote in Current Biology.

The tests were conducted with a special pair of goggles that made subjects play games for about an hour each day, first with the affected eye covered, then with both eyes uncovered

Lazy eye, medically known as amblyopia, is when one eye doesn't develop properly; the symptoms are that both eyes often don't point in the same direction, and the affected eye will squint. Traditionally, eye doctors would patch the stronger eye to allow the weaker one to catch up, but if future studies can replicate these results, patching may not be necessary. Read more...

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Scott Fujita is a winner. He attended UC Berkeley, played 11 NFL seasons and won a Super Bowl with the New Orleans Saints in 2010

So it's no real surprise Fujita announced his retirement from pro football in just about the most boss, worldly way possible: by sharing a photo of himself signing the paperwork from atop Machu Picchu. The Saints head of communications tweeted this pic on Monday:

Saints thrilled to have Scott Fujita sign his contract from Manchu Picchu this morning and retire a Saints twitter.com/GregBensel/sta…

— Greg Bensel (@GregBensel) April 22, 2013

Fujita then followed that up with a philosophical Twitter photo of his own from the historic Incan ruins in southern Peru: Read more...

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Apple beat Wall Street's estimates for revenue and sales of the iPhone and iPad in the March quarter, but the company's profits declined year-over-year for the first time in a decade.

Apple sold 37.4 million iPhones and 19.5 million iPads, surpassing analysts' estimates by about 1 million on both fronts. Those device sales helped Apple bring in $43.6 billion in revenue for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $42.6 billion and setting a new record for March quarter revenues.

"We are pleased to report record March quarter revenue thanks to continued strong performance of iPhone and iPad," said Tim Cook, Apple’s CEO, in a statement. "Our teams are hard at work on some amazing new hardware, software, and services and we are very excited about the products in our pipeline." Read more...

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The sequester, a series of federal budget cuts that went into effect in March, forced the FAA to cut employees' hours by approximately 10% — air traffic controllers included. That loss is already causing cascading delays originating in some of the country's busiest airspace, including New York and Los Angeles.

Indeed, the Federal Aviation Administration blames sequester-related furloughs for more than 1,200 of Monday's flight delays — and the problem is only expected to get worse as the country enters peak travel season this summer. What's a tech-savvy traveler to do?

Adam Goldstein, CEO of travel booking service Hipmunk, told Mashable he's heard tales of users who fall victim to airline delays pulling up alternate flight options on the Hipmunk mobile app to show airline gate agents in a bid to have their tickets rebooked. Additionally, should the worst happen — a flight that's canceled or rescheduled for the next morning — Hipmunk users can book a nearby hotel on mobile, hopefully beating other passengers who are left to calling hotels in a desperate search for accommodations Read more...

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What do technologist turned philanthropist Bill Gates and South Korean rap sensation Psy have in common? Both have achieved major accomplishments in the tech world: Psy's is the first video to hit 1 billion YouTube views and Gates was one of the leaders of the personal computer revolution.

They're also both taking part in the global fight to end polio. Through his foundation, Gates is a leader in the worldwide movement to eradicate the disease. And in February, Psy joined Rotary's "This Close" campaign as a celebrity ambassador.

On Sunday, Gates tweeted an Image of Psy from the Rotary campaign, highlighting the artist's contribution to the movement Read more...

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If you wear your phone’s headset while driving to send voice-activated text messages, you may be putting yourself and other drivers in danger. A new study from researchers at the Texas Transportation Institute at Texas A&M University found that sending text messages via voice while driving is just as dangerous as texting with fingers.

About 35% of drivers admit to reading a text or email while driving and 26% admit to typing one, according to data from AAA, a national drivers’ organization.

The team, lead by Christine Yager, compared voice-to-text and traditional texting on a handheld device in an actual driving environment. They asked 43 participants to first drive along a test track without any electronic devices present and then repeat the drive while texting and then finally send text messages while using a speech-to-text device. Read more...

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Jake Johnson is apparently just as good at impersonating Internet celebs as he is being irresistibly goofy as Nick Miller on Fox's New Girl

The self-proclaimed "competitive" actor sat down with MadeManDotCom's Paul F. Tompkins to display his best Grumpy Cat face, Troll face and Leo strut

He proved a worthy adversary to last week's celeb, Alison Brie, who also imitated famous cats and memes. Who do you think did the Grumpy Cat face best — Brie or Johnson? Tell us in the comments below

Read more...

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