Roman school kids give the Pope a drone of his own

From pizza to Fiats, people love giving gifts to Pope Francis. Most recently, students from a Jesuit school in Rome presented the Holy See with a customized quadcopter painted in the colors of the the Vatican flag and replete with the Papal emblem. A...

'OK Google, Shazam this song'

Siri started handling song queries when iOS 8 arrived, and now Google's voice commands recognize Shazam as a prompt to do the same on Android. That's right, Android devices now recognize the "Shazam" command, in addition to "recognize" or "name" for ...

Windows 10 'on track' for summer on PCs, other platforms come later

We still don't have an official release date for Windows 10, but Microsoft maintains it's on track for release this summer. That's according to Joe Belfiore, its corporate vice president of operating systems, who spoke to media earlier today. You'll ...

Microsoft can guess your age using facial recognition

Since we're right smack in the middle of Microsoft's BUILD dev conference, the company's showing off one of it's Azure APIs with a site you can put to the test. How-Old.net allows you to upload a picture before the site recognizes faces and analyzes ...

Valve releases a kit for making virtual reality apps

Eager to build a game or 3D modelling tool that takes advantage of HTC's Vive and other SteamVR-friendly virtual reality headsets? It's time to get cracking. Valve has released a software development kit that lets apps use SteamVR hardware, including...

California ACLU chapter unveils police-monitoring video app

In an effort to reduce police abuses that have occurred with frightening regularity throughout the US, the Southern California branch of the ACLU has just released a new smartphone app designed to securely record your next interaction with law enforc...

Why do PCs Still Require a CMOS Battery Even Though They Run on Electricity?

With all the progress and improvements that have been made with computer hardware, why are some things like the CMOS battery still necessary? Today’s SuperUser Q&A post has the answer to a curious reader’s question.

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Engadget Live is back and headed to Boston, LA and Austin!

The weather's getting warm, which means here at Engadget HQ, we're already planning our summer getaways. For us, that means we're gearing up for the return of Engadget Live, where we throw a series of events in different cities across the US, allowin...

Obama's 2013 'BRAIN' initiative results in remote-controlled mice

The first results to stem from President Barack Obama's 2013 "Brain Research through Advancing Innovative Neurotechnologies" initiative are in, Reuters reports. As noted in the journal Neuron, scientists were able to manipulate the brain circuitry of...

Uber's panic button can let cops in India know where you are

Earlier this year, Uber launched an in-app panic button for people in India, which lets any user easily alert local police in case of an emergency. And now this safety feature is getting improved. The ride-sharing service announced today that the rea...

Department of Energy 3D prints an all-electric Shelba Cobra

Carroll Shelby's iconic Cobra roadster has been making jaws drop for half a century now. To celebrate the 50th anniversary of the Cobra's debut the US Department of Energy built one of its own. The new Cobra's entire chassis and bodywork--from the pa...

JXE Streams: Acid Nerve teaches us how to topple 'Titan Souls'

Welcome to the new masochism! For a decade now, games have held our hands and walked us patiently through their soft hallways. Playing BioShock Infinite? Try easy mode, darling. Rollicking your way through New Super Mario Bros. U? Fail too many times...

Geek Trivia: Which Pop Artist’s Stage Name Is The Result Of An Auto Correct Typo?

Which Pop Artist’s Stage Name Is The Result Of An Auto Correct Typo?

Lady Gaga Black Eyed Peas Flo Rida Eminem Think you know the answer?

These surrealist games melt more than clocks

Some say surrealism was the most influential art movement of the past century and, perhaps unsurprisingly, it's had an effect on video game developers too. The games you'll find below weren't made by Salvador Dalí or M.C. Escher, but the influence th...

Samsung outs Level On wireless headphones for untethered listening

I took Samsung's Level line of "premium" audio gear for a spin last summer, and now the company is adding another wireless model to the set. The Level On Wireless is exactly what the name suggests: a wireless version of the on-ear headphones in the c...

How to Create Quick Slideshows and Projects with Photos

We have been talking about Apple’s new Photos application since it was recently released as part of a larger OS X system update. Today we want to cover how to create slideshows and other projects like calendars, cards, and books.

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Living with Samsung's Galaxy Note Edge in an S6 world

I was torn this past winter. I knew the Galaxy S6 was imminent and that there'd likely be a model with a curved screen, but I was dying to see what it was like to live with its bigger precursor, the Galaxy Note Edge. Would I feel a twinge of regret w...

Waze will tweet if there's unusual traffic in your area

Unless you live in California, it's not that often that you make an effort to specifically check the traffic conditions for your morning commute. That's probably because you'll be spending a big chunk of your time with your face buried in Twitter ins...

Apple and IBM customize iPads to help the elderly in Japan

The partnership between tech giants Apple and IBM, which began last year, isn't just about playing nice with each other. In Japan, the two companies just announced an initiative that will deliver up to 5 million iPads to Japanese senior citizens, at ...

Jeff Bezos' first proper test rocket has successfully launched

Elon Musk may be the most famous tech billionaire with an interest in spaceflight, but he's certainly not the only one. Amazon founder Jeff Bezos also has a company, Blue Origin, which is doing similar research into reusable craft to get us to-and-fr...

NASA's Messenger probe will crash into Mercury at 3:30pm ET today

It's been a long and hard road for NASA's Messenger Probe as it studied the surface of Mercury for the last four years. That journey, however, will come to an end today, after NASA announced that the craft will crash land into the planet at around 3:...

Apple Watch review: a status symbol for iOS devotees

​Mankind's fascination with watches capable of more than simply telling the time is nothing new. But recently, our collective interest in intelligent timepieces has spiked, and we have more and more powerful wrist-worn computers to choose from than e...

How to Get Rid of the Blue Squiggly Underlines in Word 2013

Word likes to use squiggly underlines to indicate something isn’t right in our documents. The more common ones are red (a potential spelling error) and green (a potential grammar error). However, you may have seen blue squiggly lines throughout your document as well.

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Steam hands developers the power to ban cheaters

Cheating in multiplayer games isn't big or clever, but people still think they can successfully get away with it. That's a problem for the folks at Valve, who are constantly trying to ensure that Steam is a nice place to play. It's one of the reasons...

Artificial blood vessels can cause your body to regrow the real thing

A blocked blood vessel can be pretty nasty, and the two most common treatments involve wedging it open or transplanting another vessel from elsewhere in your body. Scientists in Vienna think they may have a slightly more elegant solution to the latte...

Out-of-control Russian ISS cargo vessel will plummet back to Earth

The Russian space agency (Roscosmos) has given up trying to regain control of Progress 59 and the 6,000 pounds of food, water, clothes and equipment on board. It reportedly told TASS, the country's news agency, that it's merely waiting for the vessel...

Flywheel wants you to skip the wait for app-friendly taxis

As convenient as ridesharing and app-based taxi services can be, you still have to wait for your lift to show up. Wouldn't it be nice to hop into the first available taxi and then pay through an app? Flywheel is trying just that. Its new Pay by Flywh...

Secret's out: The rise and fall of the anonymous social app

Secret, the app that was practically synonymous with the anonymous app movement, is shutting down. David Byttow, Secret's co-founder and CEO, explained in a Medium post yesterday that the reason for the shuttering is that the app no longer represents...

Play classic MS-DOS games without even leaving Twitter

Although they went live at the very start of the year, it was like all of our Christmases had come at once when Archive.org added 2,400 playable MS-DOS games to its website. Retro titles like Maniac Mansion, Oregon Trail and Doom are all available, w...