Technology news

Star Wars: Battlefront made a splash by recreating locations, characters, and moments from the original movie trilogy, but the final piece of DLC will focus on a new film: Rogue One. Design director Niklas Fegraeus announced the news at a gaming panel during the Star Wars Celebration expo in London, speaking alongside other designers for titles that EA is publishing with Lucasfilm.
It's been known for some time that Battlefront would have four different DLC packs, with the first two focusin

Living in New York, I’m aware that I reside in a bustling Pokémon Go mecca. Its abundance of plaques, murals, and pocket parks mean you’ll find pokéstops practically every block, and its pokémon population can feel almost as dense as its human one. Blatantly jaywalking to catch one is not only permissible, but practically expected.
But after a few days navigating the city’s endless swarms of Zubats, I couldn’t help but feel that I was missing out. Wha

Industrial Light & Magic's virtual reality arm xLab is looking to some major Hollywood talent to create its next virtual reality experience, and the subject is as big as it gets. Writer David S. Goyer (Batman Begins, Man of Steel) took the stage at Star Wars Celebration today, after it was announced that he is working on the next major initiative the company is working on. Lucasfilm creative executive Pablo Hidalgo broke the news, describing it as an original Star Wars narrative experience t

One of the most famous villains of the Star Wars universe is coming back: Grand Admiral Thrawn. At the Star Wars Rebels panel today at Star Wars Celebration, executive producer Dave Filoni announced that the character would be the next major villain for the show.
This is exciting news for fans of the franchises’s Expanded Universe, which was removed from Star Wars canon asThe Force Awakens was developed. While new canon does incorporate a number of elements and characters from the Expanded

The first official lightsaber VR experience from Industrial Light & Magic's xLab will shortly be available to the public. Today at the Star Wars Celebration expo, Lucasfilm chief technology officer Rob Bredow announced that Trials on Tatooine is coming to Steam VR on Monday, July 18th. The experience works on the HTC Vive, and it will be free.
My colleague Adi Robertson got a preview of the experience earlier this year. Dubbed a "cinematic virtual reality experiment," it puts the player on T

As a coup against Turkey's government took place yesterday, Turkish citizens were sent a text message that urged them to take to the streets to support democracy and resist the coup. The text message appears to have been sent out during the coup from Erdogan's Justice and Development Party (AKP).
It's not clear how many people got the message, although many took to twitter to report seeing it. According to the New York Times, this is what they received:Dear children of the Turkish nati

Lucasfilm has pushed Star Wars far beyond just movies and novelizations, and today at Star Wars Celebration the team at Industrial Light & Magic's xLab will be discussing how they're using virtual reality and augmented reality to create tools and immersive experience unlike anything seen before.
The panel starts at 1:00PM ET / 10:00AM PT, part of a day of streaming programming from the annual convention. Director Dave Filoni will discuss the newest season of Star Wars Rebels starting at

The Galaxy S7 Edge is one of this year's best phones, so why not give it to some of the world's best athletes? Apparently the Batman phone wasn't enough, as Samsung is churning out yet another special edition of its curved smartphone — this time to celebrate the upcoming Olympic Games in Rio. This unlocked version of the S7 Edge will be gifted to everyone participating in the games, but it's also coming to stores next month. Well, one store: Best Buy. The big box retailer has exclusive dib

What happens when you live in a heavily populated area, play Pokémon Go and come across a rare pokemon? Chances are, you’re going to be in good company before too long. Pokemon mobs are becoming pretty common in major cities, and they look nuts.
Heavily trafficked public locations are a sure bet to find other players, such as New York City’s Central Park where there was a literal stampede when a Vaporeon showed up: people ran and jumped from their cars to capture the creature:

We’ve made it through the surreal first week of Pokémon Go hysteria. Morning news anchors, curious parents, and franchise first-timers now have an opportunity to catch their breath, and learn what this series was up to for the past two decades while they weren’t paying attention.
Here are six of the most helpful things I found for newcomers and lapsed fans. Ranging from the most accessible video game in the series, to a "true" tale of horror, this should keep you busy when you

As soon as I got the email, I knew. Call it intuition, call it years of experience —but it was bad. I could feel it. “Hey Hill,” my client wrote. “Can you talk on Tuesday?” My heart plunged to the wheels of my desk chair. This particular client wasn’t just anyone, either. They were a favorite of mine. Not only did they bring in one of my biggest paychecks, they were also an awesome team to work with. The project manager and I were buddies. We had a seamless s

The home office is a blessing and a curse. I love working from home as much as the next person — free snacks, zero commute, awesome lunch options in the area. Sometimes I stroll through the park on the way back from lunch, just because I can. Coworking spaces and trendy startup offices offer a pleasant alternative to the traditional stuffiness of corporate offices, but home is where the heart is. Good luck staying productive at home, though. Every remote worker learns sooner or later that

Chinese technology company Baidu today announced the launch of a few new services within its Baidu Open Cloud public cloud infrastructure portfolio.Baidu TianSuan (Smart Big Data) lets customers “collect, store, process and analyze big data,” Baidu said in a statement.Baidu TianXiang (Smart Multimedia Cloud) includes image processing, live video streaming, and even speech recognition capability, while Baidu TianGong (Intelligent IoT Service) is a full-stack platform for integrating c

(Reuters) – The attempted military coup in Turkey exploded across social media late on Friday despite restricted access to Twitter, Facebook and YouTube during the first hours of the putsch.
Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan, an avowed enemy of social media who has frequently madeTwitter and Facebook a target, addressed the country via a FaceTime video call that was shown on TV.
He also tweeted: “I call our nation to the airports and the squares to take ownership of our democracy and

(Reuters) – Authorities in the Gulf Arab states of Kuwait and United Arab Emirates on Friday warned of security dangers to playing the wildly successful new smartphone app Pokemon GO.
Users must resist the urge to point camera phones at Pikachu popping out in front of the Kuwaiti Emir’s palace, mosques, oil facilities or military bases, Kuwait’s Interior ministry said.
“The danger in dealing with this game is that it involves the user photographing areas nearby with &hell

The television studio of CNN Turk allegedly was taken over by armed members of the country’s military and its anchors forced off the air. However, the station was broadcasting its feed on Facebook Live at the time, and the stream is currently showing an empty studio while a crowd chants outside.
Gunfire and explosions have also been heard on the stream, where the audio appears to be from an open mic from within the studio. According to a report on CNN, the CNNTurk anchor said "We don'

Dan Grover, a product manager who helped Chinese messaging app company WeChat in its internationalization efforts, seems to have taken a new job at Facebook.
A photo in a tweet from Uber employee Chenyu Zheng yesterday appears to show a cake decorated with a WeChat logo, and an arrow pointing to a Facebook logo. Below the cake is Grover’s name and a sign that says happy birthday.
Wow! This should be news! FB hired Dan Grover from WeChat… Now all the china knowledge will be with

Apple has put together a proposal to set fixed songwriting royalty rates for music streaming services. The government filing, obtained by The New York Times and not made public by Apple, was crafted in collaboration with the Copyright Royalty Board and it would set songwriting royalty rate at 9.1 cents per 100 streams. Although the change would simplify what has long been a mystifying and complex royalty system, it would also significantly hike costs for competing streaming servic

So Niantic released a broken, buggy game that immediately captured both Liz's and Emily's hearts: Pokémon Go. It is funny, though, how so many of Oakland's Pokéstops are trash cans, don't you think? Emily, who was playing in a car in Los Angeles, felt shy about the dork-factor when she returned to New York. Liz, a dork, is planning on a Pokémon bar crawl.
But of course, even though Pokemon have eaten our brains, they aren't all that's going on in the world. Emily wrote a lov

Amid the ongoing military coup in Turkey, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan used Apple's FaceTime to phone into a Turkish television network this evening from a secure location. According to New York Times reporter Ceylan Yeginsu, who posted a limited transcript of the conversation on Twitter, Erdogan told citizens of Turkey to "convene at public squares and airports." Starting Friday, factions of the Turkish military began taking control of public infrastructure, shutting down