this is a landing page

Earlier this month, astronomers in Arizona spotted an unidentified space object that will fall to Earth on November 13th. The object, appropriately dubbed WT 1190 F , is only a couple feet in diameter and not very dense. That means it's probably man-made â€" likely a leftover piece of a rocket that remained in space instead of falling back down to Earth. The object orbits our planet every three weeks or so on a highly elliptical path that takes it out twice the distance from the Earth to the Moon. But eventually gravity will drag it down, and the object will burn up in the atmosphere somewhere over Sri Lanka. Continue reading…

Apple this week started selling its new streaming video box, another piece of hardware that connects to your TV set with the sometimes-undelivered promise of making cable unnecessary. But as anyone who's been paying attention to Apple TV announcements knows, this is not about hardware; it's about apps . Executives at the Cupertino tech giant have said that tvOS, the new operating system for Apple TV,  is "95 percent" of the same core framework as iOS , so that apps being built for the different platforms will stay in sync across different devices as they're updated. This basically means Apple is attempting to make it easier for developers to make all kinds of stuff for Apple TV, just like they do for iPhone. It's an interesting direction... Continue reading…

Earlier today, Justin Bieber  shared an Instagram photo of himself surrounded by the logo for Drake's " Hotline Bling ," captioned with the cheeky question, "Should I?" The second half of that question was almost undoubtedly "release my remix of this hugely popular Drake song," and the answer to it was a resounding YES. So now you can hear the song, but you have to make a phone call first. Continue reading…

Today the  first trailer for Angelina Jolie-Pitt's directorial follow-up to Unbroken was released. It's a period piece set in the '70s about a couple whose marriage goes through some turbulent shit when they relocate to the south of France. Did I mention that Jolie-Pitt and her husband, famous actor Brad Pitt, play the married couple? And that they, too, live in the south of France? (With a vineyard, of course; and I've tried their  rosé , of course; because when someone offers you "Brangelina rosé" you don't say no.) To get into character for this emotionally taxing role, Angelina must partake in that most hallowed of Important Actress rites of passage: the  Hardworking '70s Wig . The load the HSW bears is no trifle: it must be '70s enough... Continue reading…

Yahoo has cancelled the production of a  new reality show from Simon Cowell that was originally described as an " American Idol for DJs." It's the second planned series that Yahoo has cancelled this week, the first being The Pursuit , which was buzzwordily described as " Friends for the 21st century in the era of social media." Both cancellations were  reported by Variety . Continue reading…

Ariana Grande has a new music video for a single called "Focus." This is its story. SCENE: Samsung marketing team crisis management meeting after Drake performed the most viral song of the year whilst holding an iPhone in each hand. Man 1: Okay I'm tired of negativity, let's have some solutions. Man 2: We just need to do the exact same thing but with a different celebrity, right? Man 1: Yes, but who is famous other than Drake... Adele? Man 2: Flip phone . Man 1: Justin Bieber? Man 2: He's with  Drake now. Man 1: Ariana Grande? Man 2: Yes, that is a person. Man 1: What if she used the stylus and she wrote a sexy note on the Note 5... with the stylus? Man 2: It's called an "S Pen," but yes, perfect. What if, and bear... Continue reading…

Astronaut Scott Kelly has  made it through seven months of his year-long stay on the International Space Station, and it looks like the sheer isolation of living in space â€" the vast, ever-expanding swirl of nothingness that completely envelopes us all and serves as a constant reminder that we live tiny, insignificant lives on a planet that doesn't matter â€" may be getting to him. Continue reading…

RushCard, the pre-paid debit card company owned by hip-hop mogul Russell Simmons, said yesterday that it would  compensate the tens of thousands of customers whose cards were inaccessible during a two-week-long outage. The issue first began on October 12th when the company tried to switch to a payment system with MasterCard and ran into a technical malfunction. RushCard executives say the  issue was resolved last week , but some users may still be unable to withdraw cash or use their card to pay bills. The company previously said it would waive fees, like maintenance and transaction fees and ATM charges, for four months starting in November, but this new compensation effort goes one step further. Simmons said he has been  compensating... Continue reading…

Taking part in the midnight launch of a video game usually involves driving to your local GameStop or Best Buy and sitting in line with your fellow gamers for awhile. But Amazon seems to think the whole communal aspect is a bit unnecessary. Today the company announced that Prime Now, its one-hour delivery service, will be making midnight deliveries of Call of Duty: Black Ops III on November 6th. To get the game right upon its launch hour, you'll have to preorder using the Prime Now app beginning at midnight eastern on November 4th. So technically you'll need to stay up late for two nights instead of just killing time in line on the eve of Black Ops III 's release. You could risk waiting until later in the morning on November 4th to... Continue reading…

Three days ago, Uber gleefully announced a partnership with the Lithuanian capital of Vilnius to launch a ridesharing pilot in the city of 536,000 people. The company frequently touts these types of agreements to illustrate its growing acceptance by regulators and city governments. Well, you know what they say: two Uber trips forward, one Uber trip back. Continue reading…