A new tool will check if you're vulnerable to the hack that brought down computers across the globe

WannaCry paralyzed hospitals. NotPeya crashed banks. But how to know if you're vulnerable to the stolen National Security Agency exploit that fueled two major cyber attacks and helped bring down computers across the globe?

Thankfully, a new tool has your back. 

SEE ALSO: Ransomware has been around for almost 30 years, so why does it feel like it's getting worse?

After the Shadow Brokers hacking group dumped a cache of stolen NSA exploits in April, the cybersecurity community issued dire warnings that things were about to get really, really bad. But then Microsoft quickly chimed in to note that it had already patched the vulnerabilities in question.  Read more...

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This girls robotics team from Afghanistan was denied visas for a U.S. competition

A robotics competition team of Afghan girls won't be able to watch their creation compete in person.

They were recently denied one-week visas to the United States to come to Washington, D.C., for the First Global Challenge, a new robotics competition that focuses on providing clean water.

SEE ALSO: U.S. visa applicants may have to hand over their social media handles

The team twice traveled the roughly 500-mile distance to the U.S. embassy in Kabul, Afghanistan's capital, for visa interviews, but officials denied them.

"I wanted this to happen badly, I really did," said First Global President Joe Sestak, a former member of Congress. "These girls are courageous." Read more...

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Surprisingly Useful iPhone Hacks

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Here's how to use Facebook to find a Wi-Fi connection anywhere

Facebook is rolling out a new feature to help us save on data and locate open Wi-Fi networks, no matter where we are. 

It's called Find Wi-Fi, and it shows network-needy users a tailored hotspot map of their immediate area, highlighting locations where they'll be able to find a connection. The feature was tested for iOS in a few countries last year to positive reviews, so Facebook is releasing it to all users around the world on both iPhone and Android.  

It's not all wide-open public Wi-Fi — the maps are made up of businesses that have shared with Facebook from their Page — but it'll help you pick out which coffee shop would be best for a pitstop if you're in an unfamiliar place.  Read more...

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Retro-inspired text adventure puts a twist on using Wikipedia

Palmer Luckey gives monetary middle finger to Facebook and Oculus

Palmer Luckey, co-founder of Oculus virtual reality, gave his old employers at Oculus and Facebook a huge middle finger this week by donating thousands of dollars to a VR project that makes Oculus-exclusive VR games playable on its competitor's VR device, the HTC Vive.

The creator behind Revive, a pet project aimed at breaking down exclusivity barriers for VR systems, confirmed Thursday that the big jump in donations per month on his Patreon came from Luckey.

SEE ALSO: 'Echo Arena' is the first VR game that made me forget I was real

Luckey parted ways with Oculus and Facebook in March following the revelation that he was a Donald Trump supporter and had previously said some negative things about Hillary Clinton. He later denied this after his departure. Read more...

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This smart light could help you curb your screen time

'Covi' is a speech-enabled light and open-source smart hub that can automate your home. Read more...

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Chris Barr set CNET's compass - CNET

Our first editor in chief, who died last month at age 64, laid solid groundwork for our fledgling news site and the web around it.

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Chris Barr set CNET's compass - CNET

Our first editor in chief, who died last month at age 64, laid solid groundwork for our fledgling news site and the web around it.

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Facebook is targeting jerks who spam your News Feed

Facebook is taking new steps to fight spam.

The social network will now weed out posts from spammers who fill their friends' feeds with "vast amounts" of links to "low quality content." 

SEE ALSO: This app will tell you which of your photos are actually good enough to post (which is both harsh and helpful)

"We want to reduce the influence of these spammers and deprioritize the links they share more frequently than regular sharers," writes Facebook's VP of News Feed Adam Mosseri. 

In this case, Facebook is setting a pretty high bar for what it considers a "spammer." The update was designed to address the "tiny group" of users who share 50 or more public posts a day. Read more...

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Sony is bringing vinyl back, but the truth is it never went away

Vinyl records are truly a thing of beauty. They were the first thing to bring personal music libraries to the masses, and that's something we'll never forget. While cassette tapes, CDs, and streaming services have all succeeded the format, there's just something about vinyl records that keeps them living on.

SEE ALSO: The vinyl jukebox is coming back into production after 25 years

Sony Music understands this and has decided to start pressing vinyl records again at a Japanese factory by next March. This comes after a 25-year high in record sales, where we bought more than 3.2 million LPs in 2016.  Read more...

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Toyota's new robot is a gentle, helpful companion for paralyzed veteran

The robots are coming ... to help us.

Almost a decade ago, as the U.S. war in Afghanistan trudged on, Army Ranger Romulo Camargo was shot in the neck when his troop was ambushed during a humanitarian mission. He was paralyzed from the neck down and struggles with daily tasks that most people might take for granted. 

Recently, however, Camargo got a little help in the form of a pint-sized, one-armed robot from Toyota. The company announced Friday that it has completed an in-home trial of its Human Support Robot with Camargo. 

SEE ALSO: This little robot is like a Roomba for your garden

The 3 foot-tall, 81 pound robot spent time doing a handful of basic, yet useful tasks for Camargo, like opening doors and grabbing food from the pantry and delivering them to the decorated veteran. Read more...

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Weird game about girls in bikinis is getting a VR sense edition where you can *smell* them now, too

Dead or Alive is a...weird series. And it's only getting weirder with a new VR-equipped arcade cabinet edition releasing soon.

On the surface, Dead or Alive is a series of fighting games featuring scantily-clad women who, in a spin-off series, adopt a quieter life of playing volleyball and enjoying other beach activities. Since the spin-off series, the games have mostly become about about weird camera pans, zooms, and upskirt-like shots. 

The volleyball-set series somehow gets even creepier by now allowing players to smell the characters in its upcoming, immersive, photobooth-style arcade cabinet. Read more...

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Here's the tweetstorm tale of why Google pulled YouTube as a default app for the iPhone

When the iPhone launched 10 years ago, it came with YouTube as a default app on iOS 1.

The pairing of the Google-owned video platform and Apple wasn't as odd then as it might seem today — the first commercial version of Android didn't debut until 2008. 

But that doesn't mean that the Apple/ Google collaboration was a happy marriage. The YouTube app was created by Apple with little input from the YouTube team, which limited the video viewing experience, much to the chagrin of iOS users resorting to their mobile browser to watch video content on the platform.  

That changed in 2012 with the introduction of iOS 6, which launched without the Apple-built YouTube app for the first time, after Google didn't renew its license. This allowed Google to bring its own fully realized version of YouTube to the App Store, but also meant that YouTube was no longer a default app on the phone. Read more...

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Facebook could now be fined $57m over hate speech

Facebook beware — Germany is finally getting serious on fighting hate speech, and that has wider consequences.

SEE ALSO: This country is waging a war against Facebook

For some time, the European country flagged the possibility it could impose a heavy fine on Facebook, Twitter and other social networks for allowing fake news and hate messages to proliferate. 

On Friday, German lawmakers passed the Network Enforcement Act, commonly nicknamed as the "Facebook law", under which social media companies could face a fine of up to €50m (£43m; $57m) for failing to crack down on hate speech, criminal material and fake news.  Read more...

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This globe-shaped floating object could one day deliver your snail mail

‘FreeMotionHandling’ by Festo is an indoor flying object that can autonomously maneuver itself in any direction and pick up and drop off any item. Read more...

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Lenovo is making a camera specifically for YouTube's VR180 format

Virtual reality (VR) is undeniably cool, but think about just how much of the experience is wasted. Total immersion requires a complete sphere of video ("360"), but humans can only see roughly half of that experience at any given moment.

That's why YouTube announced VR180 a bit ago, the idea being if you cut the VR "world" in half, you can boost the quality of the experience significantly, and most of what you're getting rid of the user isn't seeing anyway.

Now all the format needs is actual support, and that's underway. Lenovo announced it would be the first Google partner to debut a VR180 camera. The new Lenovo camera can fit in your pocket and is meant to be as user-friendly as a point-and-shoot. Read more...

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Get your sport on safely with the 2018 Honda Fit - Roadshow

The best news from this mid-cycle refresh, though, is that the infotainment system's volume knob is back!

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Elon Musk promises Model 3 release news on Sunday - Roadshow

Sunday. Great.

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This solar-powered car might be better for the planet than a Tesla

You can keep your measly normal electric cars, Elon Musk — the real future of automotive power will be fully powered by the sun.

That's the vision a new Dutch auto startup, Lightyear, hopes the world is ready to embrace with a fully solar-powered, four-wheel-drive luxury sedan. Lightyear is just the latest challenger to Tesla's top spot in the green automotive space, but its claims about the potentially groundbreaking tech powered the car are bolder — and more suspect — than most.

The startup unveiled its Lightyear One concept earlier this week, touting a battery that can constantly replenish its power using the sun and travel a range of up to 800 km (almost 500 miles) when fully juiced. That's just the start: The company claims that in the right sunny environment (say, Hawaii), the One could potentially drive for months at a time between charges. Read more...

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Aura delivers guided meditation for any attention span

Just to let you know, if you buy something featured here, Mashable might earn an affiliate commission.

Do you have the attention span of a goldfish? A new meditation app, Aura, claims it can still help you out.

Aura entered a saturated meditation market with a mission and an edge. By combining cutting-edge artificial intelligence with time-tested relaxation techniques from therapists and meditation teachers, the app aims to deliver meditation for anyone. The meditations range from three to 10 minutes, so you can get your peace on faster than you can finish a Tootsie Pop.

SEE ALSO: This app wants to help you speed through your reading list Read more...

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Government's surveillance powers to be challenged in High Court

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Future iPhones won't have a charging port — here's why

Every iPhone has come with a hole in its bottom. Did I say hole? I meant charging port.

First it was the 30-pin port on the iPhone "2G" in 2007, which lasted until the iPhone 4S in 2011. And then it was the Lightning port, which has appeared on every iPhone since the iPhone 5 in 2012.

But expect that to change in the future.

SEE ALSO: iPhone 2020: Imagining the future of Apple's iconic smartphone

It's not a question of if the port will go away, but when will it happen. We think it could happen in 2020, but given all the "courage" Apple summoned to kill the headphone jack on the iPhone 7 it's possible they could kill the Lightning port earlier. (But probably not this year.) Read more...

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