Technology news

WatchAir is attempting to reinvent the TV antenna for the modern age using a suite of apps that can stream TV to a number of different devices including your smartphone, and adding the ability to record shows. The company says the antenna, which doesn't need to be connected to your TV to work, will be able to stream live TV to your smart TV, smartphone, tablet, or streaming box including Roku, Apple TV, and Amazon Fire TV. (WatchAir won't work with every smart TV, only with sets from Samsung, LG

GUEST: Mobile game marketing is a competitive and rapidly evolving space, and it’s becoming more nuanced in its execution with each passing year. Recently, Facebook has emerged as a dominant UA player; TV advertising for mobile is becoming big business; and we’ve even seen mobile games sponsor soccer teams.
What other changes does the future hold for mobile game marketing? What opportunities are there for forward-thinking marketers looking to get ahead of the game?
Here are five tren

GUEST: Last week the White House launched its first chatbot. The fact that the most powerful man on the planet is using a chatbot to receive messages has gotten a lot of people excited.
But some in the press wanted to see more. In his VentureBeat article, John Brandon noted that while the White House bot might serve as a cool new way to contact the president, it misses many opportunities, like utilizing a sophisticated artificial intelligence for language recognition and providing people with ad

You know what I always think to myself? We don’t have enough fitness trackers. And now, McDonald’s is getting into the fitness tracking game, but for kids. The fast food chain is temporarily replacing its Happy Meal toys in the US and Canada with wearables. How fun. The trackers are really more of a pedometer because they only count a wearer’s steps. They come in six colors and blink depending on how fast a person is walking. The Verge's own Andrew Liptak visited

(Reuters) — Cisco Systems Inc said it would lay off up to 5,500 employees, or nearly 7 percent of its workforce, as the world’s largest networking gear maker shifts focus to areas such as security, Internet of Things and cloud.
Cisco’s traditional business of switches and routers has been struggling with sluggish demand from telecom carriers and enterprise customers and intense competition from companies such as Huawei and Juniper Networks Inc.
Revenue in the company’s tr

Chip and Joanna Gaines, the stars of HGTV's Fixer Upper, make their living off of renovating normal houses in and around Waco, TX and turning them into gorgeous, albeit formulaic houses in and around Waco, TX. Lately, many of these Fixer Upper homes have been cropping up as vacation rental listings — a trend that threatens the sanctity of the dream home.
at least six 'fixer upper' homes are listed as vacation rentalsThe Waco Tribune reports that at least six of the Fixer Upper houses

Sony sees promise in VR tank battles.
European developer Rebellion announced today that its upcoming virtual reality game for PlayStation 4, Battlezone, will have Sony Interactive Entertainment Europe as its publisher. The tank-based Battlezone is a new take on a 1980 arcade game of the same name. It launches on October 13, the same day as the PlayStation VR headset comes out for the PlayStation 4. Analysts are predicting that VR could generate $40 billion in revenues by 2020

Ubisoft announced its action sports game Steep will debut on December 2 on the consoles and Windows PC.
The game is an sports game set in the open world of the Alps, where you can engage in the likes of wingsuit races, skiing, snowboarding, and paragliding, all with a X-Games sheen on them.
Players who preorder the Standard or Gold Editions of the game will be able to extend their night-riding experiences through The Moonlight pack. This pack contains new challenges and equipment, including

In a year of high-profile science fiction blockbusters, Denis Villenueve’s Arrival could be a welcome breath of fresh air. The latest from the director of moody thrillers like Sicario and Prisoners, it follows a linguist (Amy Adams), who is tasked with helping to communicate with a recent arrival of extraterrestrial beings.
Hot on the heels of the first trailer, Sony’s released an international trailer that shows off a little more of what we can expect:After a disappointing summer fo

GUEST: While the tech industry has been busy losing its mind over bots, I’ve been observing from the sidelines, underwhelmed. I’ve tried to buy into the mania, but after testing a handful of bots, I found that most were boring, frustrating, and more complicated to use than a website, an app, or even picking up the phone.
So how can bots evolve to become useful, and — dare I say it — lovable? I was recently challenged with building one, and here is what I learned:
Planning

Uncorporeal Systems came out of stealth today to announce a partnership with media company RadicalMedia to capture human images for the purpose of creating realistic humans in virtual reality and augmented reality experiences.
Uncorporeal is working with volumetric capture technology to inject real human imagery into AR/VR. The tech can save months of post production, animation and stitching time for digital artists. With the tech, humans can become super-realistic holograms that designers can p

Marvel's The Runaways is getting turned into a series for Hulu. Deadline reports that the Eisner award-winning series is being adapted for the small screen by Gossip Girl creators Josh Schwartz and Stephanie Savage for Marvel Television, becoming yet another Marvel property heading to TV in the coming years.
The Runaways, written by Saga creator Brian K. Vaughan with art from Ms. Marvel artist Adrian Alphona, debuted back in 2003. The story follows the misadventures of a group of

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) have adopted new regulations to reduce the carbon emissions and improve fuel efficiency of medium- and heavy-duty trucks. The new regulations will, according to the White House, cut 1.1 billion tons of carbon pollution, save vehicle owners $170 billion in fuel costs, and reduce oil consumption by as much as 84 billion gallons.
The ambitious regulations are expected to deliver a lot of savings

Pizza Hut is following in the international pizza chain tradition of including tech-infused features along with its sub-par pies (don't @ me), but its newest product may be the best one yet. The company's UK division has built a working turntable into a pizza box.The DJ pizza box was created in partnership with Novalia and uses printed electronics for the controls. It features pitch and volume controls, a fully functioning mixer, and you can even scratch on the printed turntable. The box ca

These are strange days for culture critics. People can’t stop talking about Santana and Smash Mouth. A surprise album release is surprising because the album isn’t released. Memes have turned wholesome. How fitting it is, in this period of unpredictability, that one of the most dependable resources for pop culture recommendations should be the President of the United States.
Last week, President Obama curated a rich summer reading list, and not one, but two excellent summer mix tapes

The impending death of the 3.5mm audio port is one of the more contentious tech industry narratives this year. With Apple rumored to remove the jack with the iPhone 7 and devices like the Moto Z already having ditched the port altogether, consumers are justifiably concerned about a standards war they didn't ask for. As it stands, USB-C is only used in a select few phones and laptops like the aforementioned Moto phone and the newer Apple MacBook. Intel, however, thinks the versatile new

Update at 2:0 p.m. Pacific: Microsoft has resolved the issue, noting on its status page that the core services for Xbox Live are working normally. The original story follows below.
You might have some trouble connecting online with your Xbox One today.
Xbox Live’s core services — which includes signing into or managing an account — are experiencing errors today, causing some users to be unable to log in. This includes those who pay for the $60-a-year premium Xbox Live

Last week, I spent a couple hours with BioShock: The Collection, a compilation of the classic BioShock series. The collection includes BioShock, BioShock 2, and BioShock Infinite, all but the last remastered for Xbox One, PlayStation 4, and PC. (Infinite’s PC version "already meets current-gen console standards," says publisher 2K.)
A video game remaster isn’t as cut and dry as, say, remastering an album. A game remaster can mean lots of things: updating the visuals; rerecording the

Instagram has introduced a new channel to its Explore screen designed to have you use the media-sharing app more. When you browse through it, you’ll see curated videos around concerts, sporting events, and other activities, completely personalized for your viewing pleasure. Think of it as Twitter Moments and Snapchat further integrated into Instagram.
Available to just those in the U.S., this event channel is a further extension of what Instagram had been testing out since October when it

Galaxy Note 7 reviews have hit the internet this week and the consensus among them is that it might be the best designed smartphone ever. Today I got my hands on this precious new device, and my skepticism has quickly morphed into geeky reverence for the sheer brilliance, unfailing symmetry, and outrageous efficiency of the Note 7's design. And what also strikes me is how far back you have to go to find the roots of its creation. Continue reading…

Microsoft today announced the release of new Windows 10 builds for PC and mobile for people participating in the fast ring of the Windows Insider Program.
Build 14905 for both platforms arrives six days after the release of build 14901 for PC and one day after the Windows 10 Mobile Anniversary Update became available.
On PC, people using the Edge browser will have a new keyboard shortcut to use: Control + O. That will move the focus to the Windows 10 browser’s address bar, Dona Sarkar, a s

On Saturday, someone started leaking the NSA’s secrets. A pop-up Twitter account called "theshadowbrokers" posted a link to a pastebin, which in turn led to more than 300 MB of exploits and scripts. According to the Shadow Brokers, the data came from the Equation Group, an advanced malware threat long linked to the NSA. Alongside the data, the attackers posted a manifesto in broken English. "We want make sure Wealthy Elite recognizes the danger cyber weapons, this message, our auction, pos

Silicon Valley is full of chatter about artificial intelligence, deep learning neural networks, and machine learning. And Intel, the world’s biggest chip maker, is becoming a lot more conversant in that chatter today.
Intel executive Diane Bryant announced today that the company is working on a next-generation version of its high-end server chip, the Xeon Phi, for A.I. applications.
Baidu will use the upcoming Xeon Phi chips in the data centers it is building for its Deep Speech platform,

Twitter has added new reporting to its Crashlytics offering to let developers know if their iOS app has crashed as the result of an out-of-memory (OOM) event. With additional insights, app makers will be better able to prepare for and address issues that cause OOM to occur.
An OOM event happens when an app is terminated because a mobile device runs out of memory. Users will chalk these instances up to an ordinary app crash, but Crashlytics can now properly diagnose the problem so developers can

Earlier today, Circuit Breaker told you about the Kobo Aura One, the new 7.8-inch e-reader that will hit stores next month. But it won't be the only new e-reader from Kobo, as the company announced that an updated version of the original 6-inch Aura — which was released in 2013 — will also be available next month.The Kobo Aura Edition 2 features a 6-inch, 212ppi display, 4GB of storage (which can hold about 3,000 e-books), Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g/n, and weighs in at 180 grams, slightly

Rush Hour director Brett Ratner is working with the United Nations to produce an anthology series dramatizing historic humanitarian crises from around the world. According to The Hollywood Reporter, the series is titled In Harm's Way, and will focus on true stories from UN staff.
In Harm's Way, created by writer-producer David Raymond, will be the first show of its kind to tell stories from the UN's perspective. Since 2009, the organization has worked with TV studios to help promote its eff

Intel scored a big partnership with AT&T — the telecom giant announced that it would move aggressively to Intel technology as it builds out its future network.
Diane Bryant, executive vice president of Intel’s Data Center Group, announced the partnership at the Intel Developer Forum today in San Francisco. The deal shows that communications networks are undergoing a transformation to cloud computing. AT&T and Intel are already partners, but now they’re getting even

Joshua Browder believes parking tickets are a tax on the poor and really wants to make bots that help people. That’s why his free bot DoNotPay that fights parking tickets launches in Seattle next week.
Since creating DoNotPay bot last year he has helped 170,000 people in New York and London successfully dispute parking tickets, saving them millions of dollars. The parking ticket bot will come to the San Francisco Bay Area afterwards, he said.
“I think the next big step

Intel is launching a new silicon photonics product that will make it a lot easier to hurl data around data centers at tremendous speeds.
The Intel PSM4 silicon photonics module can deliver 100 gigabits per second across two kilometers, making it easier to share data at high speeds across the “spine” of a data center. The technology is the result of years-long efforts to bring both electronics and optical components onto a single piece of silicon, which is lower cost and easier to mak

AT&T is finally phasing out overages fees on its mobile data plans. Today the company unveiled a revised lineup of monthly service plans — now called Mobile Share Advantage — that will launch on August 21st with prices starting at $30. AT&T is also (yet again) switching up the data buckets you can choose between. The data allotments are shown below, but keep in mind you'll also need to factor in a device access charge for whatever devices you're using on the account. For

In 2009, a super dense dead star exploded in a brilliant flash of light — and astronomers were able to watch the entire thing from Earth. The dead star was a white dwarf, the leftover remnant of a star that has used up all its fuel and collapsed. The explosion was a classical nova, a rarely seen type of star explosion that occurs only in white dwarfs. The astronomers were able to watch this star before and after it exploded, providing the first ever visual confirmation of what triggers thi

Bachelor in Paradise is a television show in which the discarded men and women from The Bachelor and The Bachelorette come to a place called "Paradise" (technically a resort in Mexico) for a second (or sometimes third, and occasionally fourth) shot at love. Each week, they pair off in a game of sexy musical chairs. Throughout the season, the surplus human beings are granted blissful reentry to the real world, and two more men or women are added to the cast as tribute. Who knows how long this cou

When the ancient Greeks held the first Olympics, do you think they realized that thousands of years later, people would be utilizing modern computer technology to digitally alter footage to make it look like athletes were playing tennis on top of a volcano? No, probably not, because they didn't know what words like "computer," and "tennis," and "volcano" were. Don't be an idiot.
Great Britain's Andy Murray and Argentina's Juan Martin Del Potro faced off in a four-hour tennis match for the ages l

A popular show is getting a new mobile game, and we have new contender for the “most confusing title” award (sorry, Kingdom Hearts).
Telltale has published a new mobile game based on Mr. Robot, the hit TV show on the USA Network about hacking and cybersecurity. Called Mr. Robot:1.51exfiltratiOn, the iOS and Android game takes place in real time and tells a story that extends the narrative of the show. It’s developed by Night School Studio, a team of Telltale and Disne

Google today is announcing several updates to its Google Classroom cloud service for handling assignments, coursework, and grades.
And in the Inbox by Gmail email client — which is now turned on by default for people with Google for Education domains in which new features are automatically turned on — emails from Google Classroom are now grouped together, so it’s easier to deal with them all. Google has done something similar for email notifications from GitHub, Trello, and Goo

The TiVo Series 1 DVR, first introduced in 1999, is about to meet its end. TiVo has recently been emailing customers to notify them that the Philips-manufactured box will be unable to load any new programming information as of September 29th.
The device was last manufactured in 2002, but there are still 3,200 Series 1 TiVos in active use according to the company. You've got to figure that a fair number of those people have had to replace the internal hard drive once or twice over the years. Mayb

Metal Gear without Kojima also means Metal Gear without Snake.
Japanese publisher Konami announced a new game in the Metal Gear series, Metal Gear Survive. It’s a co-op survival game “set in an alternate universe” with things that look like zombies. So … yeah, it doesn’t look much like Metal Gear, a series all about espionage at all. This is also the first Metal Gear game released since series creator Hideo Kojima left Konami shortly after the release of Metal

Artist Stephen Byrne apparently lives in a different world from the rest of us. Specifically, the world where everything that fandom loves eventually becomes an animated series. The Irish-born comics artist has been spinning out beautifully drawn pieces of visual fan fiction for years now, like this post-Star Wars: The Force Awakens fantasy where Rey, BB-8, Poe Dameron, and Finn team up to take out evil Sith lord Jar-Jar Binks. Or this nine-page Trinity story, which has dressed-down versions of