Technology news

Two hours of zombie talk greeted fans at Comic-Con Friday afternoon when The Walking Dead and Fear The Walking Dead held back to back panels spilling secrets — but not THAT Negan secret — about their respective new seasons. 
"We’re not going to speak about it," star Andrew Lincoln explained early on in the chat about totally dodging the "Who does Negan kill?" Walking Dead question. "It’s a really shitty start to the season but hang in there — we’re headin

Niantic Labs’ John Hanke will be delivering a fireside chat for AR/VR day (augmented reality/virtual reality) at GamesBeat 2016. Get a ticket here!If you haven’t heard of Pokémon Go by now, you’re probably living under a rock and I’m impressed with your ability to get online and read this article. Companies are jumping on the bandwagon, trying to capitalize on, or at least somehow highlight, the phenomenon. The latest to join the fray is none other than YouTube.
Th

Okay, I'll admit, I just like saying "foveated rendering" because it makes me sound smart. But it's a real thing, and it's going to probably play an important role in the next stage of this little VR journey we're all on. Foveated rendering saves on GPU work by only rendering sharply whatever you're looking at, while leaving the periphery blurry. Basically, it imitates what the eye already does in order to make rendering more efficient, doing less work where it isn't needed.Of course, this only

GUEST: The unveiling of the Facebook chatbot platform has created a veritable maelstrom of activity in Silicon Valley.
Every day, a new article either bemoaning the digitization of communication or celebrating the simplicity of automation, weighs in on this phenomenon. Is 2016 the year of the chatbot? Undoubtedly. But will 2017 be? Will chatbots prove to be the Google of A.I.? Will they replace our current models of customer service? No!
Despite WIRED declaring that “Facebook believes mess

A big dog in a canvas tote might be just the thing we all need to see right now. 
It might not be the exact formula for world peace, but it's a delightful reminder of how strange New York City can be sometimes. 
SEE ALSO: Fluffy little rescue dog posing with food is our ideal Instagram accountAlex Romano captured a shot of what might be a husky, just chilling in a bag on the subway without a care in the world. Casual. 
Apparently, he's not the only dog living large. Someone replie

 A San Francisco judge ruled today that adtech CEO Gurbaksh Chahal violated his probation in a domestic violence case. Judge Tracie Brown ordered Chahal to surrender his passports to the court on Monday and will determine his sentence on August 12. Chahal’s legal woes began when he was accused of attacking a woman inside his penthouse apartment in August 2013. Prosecutors said… Read More

Tapping through my Snapchat stories one afternoon, I was arrested by a rudimentary doodle. “This Week’s Cover” it said in neon scrawl.
This simple snap was everything I didn’t know I needed in my life.
SEE ALSO: This Snapchat feature can tell you if your crush is into you
Since then, The New Yorker's Snapchat stories have become an obsession for me, a singular piece of high art among a cluttered tweenscape of brands and celebrities.New Yorker cover editor Françoise

Sia is bringing her epic vocals and even more epic wig to My Little Pony: The Movie.
During the My Little Pony Panel at San Diego Comic-Con on Friday, Hasbro and Lionsgate announced that the "Chandelier" hit songwriter has joined the cast of the upcoming adaptation of the beloved childhood toy franchise. 
And while her character may not look much like the Sia we know, they do have a lot in common: Songbird Serenade is a pony pop star.
SEE ALSO: Sia's adorable 'Alive' video star shows off he

It appears the slogan of Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign is: Gotta text 'em all.
Clinton, the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, will reportedly announce her pick for vice president via a text message to her supporters on Friday, one day before the two are scheduled to appear together for the first time on the same ticket.
Clinton is already known as the texter in chief, but the vice presidential announcement is just part of the Clinton campaign's attempt to reach supporters th

Last night, Silicon Valley billionaire Peter Thiel made history as the first openly gay speaker in the history of the Republican National Convention.
His speech drew real applause, however hesitant or polite, and made big headlines across major media outlets and every social platform. Here was an openly gay man, advocating on behalf of a political party that has long refused to acknowledge the existence of people like him. Peter Thiel's presence was, if nothing else, a cosmetic nod to gay humani

When you’re invited to see Hodor DJ a set at the single biggest nerd convention in the country, you don’t think twice. You put on your finest raiment, say a prayer to the Old Gods and the New, and prepare for a night to remember. That’s what I expected from Rave of Thrones — Kristian Nairn's, of Game of Thrones fame, two-year party tour.Promotions promise the deepest house music the Seven Kingdoms have ever heard. Continue reading…

Breaion King, 26, opened her car door in a parking lot on June 15, 2015, but was immediately told to get back inside. Austin police officer Bryan Richter approached and told her he'd pulled her over for speeding. 
Moments later, he ducked into her car and grabbed at King, who wailed in protest. Richter yanked King up and threw her onto the asphalt, forcing her hands behind her and shouting that she was under arrest, though he did not say what for. 
SEE ALSO: Police shoot unarmed black

Last season The Walking Dead left audiences hanging with one of the most infuriating cliffhangers the show has ever attempted. That strategy is in full effect in this new trailer, revealed today at Comic-Con, that infers just about anyone could end up on the wrong side of Negan's wire-wrapped baseball bat. During the panel, showrunner Scott Gimple also revealed when the show would be returning to presumably answer who he killed: October 23rd.
Most of the focus last season was on the appearance o

Feminist writer Roxane Gay and poet Yona Harvey will write a Marvel comic series set in the same world as Ta-Nehisi Coates' Black Panther series, The New York Times reports.
Reportedly coming this November, the series will be called World of Wakanda, and it will go deeper into the stories of the women of the Black Panther universe. One of Coates' main goals for his Black Panther series was to make Wakanda feel like a real place, with a distinct African cultural history — these st

EXCLUSIVE: Mobile social game RockYou is laying off 65 people, or 18 percent of its staff, over the next three months, GamesBeat confirmed today.
The San Mateo, California-based company has been steadily expanding and contracting as its business needs change. RockYou’s business revolves around its ad network and monetizing old games that it acquires from other publishers who can no longer make money from them. RockYou shows ads to the players and helps monetize the games, keeping them aliv

The week before Hillary Clinton is expected to become the Democratic presidential candidate, WikiLeaks has published over 19,000 emails it says come from seven top Democratic National Committee figures. Among them are hundreds of messages that appear to hold personal information about donors, all part of what WikiLeaks calls an ongoing series of "Hillary Leaks."
WikiLeaks announced the new database in a tweet, with the hashtags #Hillary2016 and #feelthebern. It includes 19,252 emails with 8,034

Baidu, the Chinese search giant, has quietly released an early preview of TalkType, a virtual keyboard for Android devices that lets you use your voice as your main input method. All you have to do is hit the microphone icon in the middle of the keyboard and start talking, and Baidu will quickly and fairly accurately dictate what you’re saying.
Think of it as a speech-first alternative to the Google Keyboard. Like the Google Keyboard, in TalkType you can peck with your fingers to type out

Google today announced Google Play store improvements focused on the size of updates. A new delta algorithm, bsdiff, has been rolled out to further reduce patches for apps and games.
Mobile users are sensitive to the amount of data they use, especially when Wi-Fi is not available. Google is thus trying to reduce the data required for Google Play app installs and updates, as well as make data cost clearer to users.
Google says that for approximately 98 percent of app updates from the Play Store,

AMC's spinoff Fear the Walking Dead has shown us what the world looks like as it slowly descends into zombie apocalypse madness — and judging from a new clip, things are about to get even worse. During the show's panel at San Diego Comic-Con today, the crowd was shown the trailer for the second half of the show's current season. It's full of hopelessness and misery, with people sacrificing themselves to zombie hoards, and troubled addict Nick stumbling amongst the dead, covered in blood.
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J.K. Rowling famously tweeted out that "Voldemort was nowhere near as bad" asDonald Trump. It now appears Rowling’s fans are primed to agree. A new study reveals that people who have read the Harry Potter books are more likely to dislike Trump.
The reason, according to study author Diana Mutz, a professor of political science at the University of Pennsylvania, is that the novels’ major themes — the value of tolerance, opposition to violence, and the dangers of authoritarianism

Microsoft today announced the availability of the App Analysis tool for Windows Bridge for iOS. It’s a free web service that automatically analyzes source code to determine what will work with the Windows Bridge, an open source project for turning existing apps into Universal Windows Platform (UWP) apps.
“We want to make it as easy as possible to get started with the bridge — but until now, even finding out if your app was a good match for the bridge was a multi-step process th

Niantic Labs’ John Hanke will be delivering a fireside chat for AR/VR day (augmented reality/virtual reality) at GamesBeat 2016. Get a ticket here!Pokémon Go’s success is unlike anything that Apple’s App Store has ever seen before.
Pokémon Go had more downloads in its first week on the iOS App Store than any other app ever, according to Apple. It already beat Clash Royale to 10 million installs, but now the Google Maps-powered monster-capturing app

Hopefully by now you know it’s generally a bad idea to access unsecured networks over WiFi, but having a phone that warns you about the dangers when you’re on one is a great step forward for those that aren’t so tech savvy. iOS 10 will do just that. The danger of sending and receiving data over an open network can’t be understated. With relatively simple (and cheap) tools, hackers can intercept the data as it’s transmitted back and forth, including passwords, credi

It’s going to take more than a Volvo to save the Apple Watch.
Yes, you can use the Watch to start your XC90 and adjust the climate settings. With a swipe, no less. Unfortunately, as IDC reported this week, sales have slipped on the device that was going to become the next iPhone-caliber hit but ended up being more like the Newton.
It’s amazing how many people are holding out for this one, and I’ll admit I want to see where this all leads. Apple recently announced some radical d

Currently, Munich is in the midst of an active shooter situation with reports circulating of several deaths already and police still searching for the gunman. Twitter has joined the fray by offering safe haven for those needing a place to get inside, and away from a potentially deadly scenario on the streets of Munich. Currently, the hashtag #offenetuer (open door) is guiding those seeking refuge to places where they can find safe haven and get off the streets while police attempt to

In news that should come as a surprise to no one, Pokemon Go has broken the record for most App Store downloads in a first week of availability. Apple confirmed the number to Polygon, albeit without providing specifics (Polygon is waiting for an exact number from The Pokemon company). Whatever the tally ends up being, that’s surely set to rise as the app continues its rollout in other countries; the app was only officially available in the US, Australia and New Zealand during its fir

ROME (Thomson Reuters Foundation) — New Google-powered software will help the world tackle problems related to climate change, deforestation and food production, a United Nations agency said on Friday, as it presented its revamped online platform.
Open Foris, U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) software, uses high-resolution satellite images to monitor the environment and changes in land use and forest cover.
“We make maps that used to take three years in a week,”

Pokémon Go, the augmented reality game that might as well be everyone's second job, has become the most downloaded mobile app in its first week of release in the history of the App Store. Apple confirmed the record to The Verge, although no concrete download numbers have been made available. The app, a free-to-play mobile title from developer Niantic in collaboration with The Pokémon Company, was released on July 5th in Australia and New Zealand and a day later in the US.

Pokémon Go, the augmented reality game that might as well be everyone's second job, has become the most downloaded mobile app in its first week of release in the history of the App Store. Apple confirmed the record to The Verge, although no concrete download numbers have been made available. The app, a free-to-play mobile title from developer Niantic in collaboration with The Pokémon Company, was released on July 5th in Australia and New Zealand and a day later in the US.

Twitter made an intriguing move earlier this week when it announced it would open its coveted blue checkmark to the public with an open application process. Although the announcement was cryptic, the company clearly wants to increase the number of verified users it has. As of Tuesday, there are only 187,000 verified accounts among Twitter’s 310 million monthly active users.
The short-term effects of an application process appear minimal, but it could signal a change in how the company

Comparably has launched a new product aimed to give company leaders a market-wide idea about where compensation is going. With this latest offering, chief executives, management, and those in human resources can access Comparably’s full set of salary and equity data for free. Additionally, companies can claim their pages on Comparably to customize and receive analytics about how they’re viewed by employees.
Launched in March by Docstoc cofounder Jason Nazar, former Docstoc chief

I’m currently midway through a game called The Assembly, which was released on Oculus Rift and HTC Vive a few days ago. The Assembly is one of the closest things VR has to a full-length, first-person exploration game, which is one of my favorite genres. The plot has shades of Portal and The Prisoner, alternately following two protagonists through a secret underground research facility that operates above the law. The writing and art direction aren’t perfect, but it’s still one

Life is a struggle. You’re trying to catch Charizard but your Pokéballs just keep drifting off to the side while the animated dragon looks on realizing he’s completely safe due to your rather pathetic aim. Jon Cleaver wants to help by creating a simple and useful 3D printed phone case designed for the iPhone 6/6s. The case, which is most definitely cheating (but who cares?) uses thin plastic as a guide to keep your finger straight throughout the deployment of your P

Today the Department of Energy announced that it was expanding its $4.5 billion loan guarantee program to include charging stations for electric vehicles (EV). Charging stations could be seen as an “efficient electrical transmission or distribution technologies,” which would make them eligible under the law for this specific loan program.
The rapid decrease in the price of batteries — more than 70 percent between 2008 and 2014 — and the introduction of more mass-market EV

Microsoft is making a number of changes to OneDrive today, but the feature that stands out is a new Pokémon detector. OneDrive has been sorting pictures into tags by detecting if photos are of food, buildings, animals, drink, and many more. Pokémon seems to be the latest tag, and if you use OneDrive on Windows, Android, or iOS to backup photos then it will automatically detect all your Pokémon screenshots and allow you to search for each monster by name.
If Pokémon is

Twenty-two-year-old Chicago rapper Lil Bibby has a lot to prove. The competition coming out of the Chicago rap scene lately has been stiff, his birth name is "Brandon," and he only made it onto XXL's 2014 Freshman Class list because Young Thug decided he didn't feel like posing for a photo. That could be why he's chosen to write an aggressive musical tribute to Game of Thrones' fans favorite hungry young dude, Jon Snow.
The track starts off with samples from the show: Melisandre whispering,

Facebook has touted its own tooling for React for some time, but most developers know that getting set up requires learning quite a fool tools to set up a project. Its new project, however, the aptly-named ‘Create React App’ should make this simpler. The project, born out of a hackathon, bundles tools and makes it easier for developers to get started developing and deploying JavaScript projects for the platform. In fact, the bundle pairs everything down to a single command-line