Technology news

Done. Deal.Walmart announced on Monday that its monster $3.3 billion acquisition of e-commerce startup Jet.com is official. Walmart CEO Doug McMillon broke the news with a photo posted to Instagram on Monday. Startup-y!In a blog post, McMillon explained the deal by saying, “Walmart and Jet.com obsess about saving customers time and money. By joining forces, we’ll be better at doing both, creating seamless shopping from app to site to store.”Continue reading…

The awards ceremony that wraps up the Toronto International Film Festival can feel like a weird grab-bag event. Toronto doesn't hand out the Best Actor / Actress / Director-type awards that dominate so many film awards ceremonies. Most of its individual awards are narrowly focused on local cinema or other specific areas of interest, set by the corporations or associations that sponsor them. Some of them come from small groups with big acronyms and specific agendas, like the FIPRESCI awards (from

A replica of a 2,000-year-old Roman arch that was destroyed by ISIS in Syria last year was unveiled in New York City today. The triumphal arch, a two-thirds scale of the original, was first showcased in Trafalgar Square in London this past April. Now, it will stay in City Hall Park for a week before being shipped to its next destination, Dubai.The replica was made by the Institute for Digital Archaeology (IDA) using 3D computer models based on photographs of the original arch; the photos were ta

Last year, the United Nations added a new tool to its fundraising arsenal: virtual reality. With the help of studio Vrse.works, it released Clouds Over Sidra, a mini-documentary following a 12-year-old Syrian refugee. Since then, it’s been increasingly accepted that VR can boost philanthropy by connecting viewers more deeply to a subject — that, as a member of Vrse.works put it, a headset is "the ultimate empathy machine."
There’s some early evidence to bear this out. A 2015 fu

For seven seasons of the late NBC comedy Parks and Recreation, the mustachioed-character Ron Swanson behaved like a Mark Twain character dropped inexplicably into modern-day Indiana. The whiskey-swilling, woodworking, meat-loving Libertarian could have become a forgettable straight-man alongside a crowded ensemble cast of local government do-rights, but actor Nick Offerman gave Swanson heart and depth.Even with the show wrapped, Offerman is still associated with Swanson’s gruff, straight-f

GoPro hosted an event in Northern California today where it introduced its first drone and its new Hero 5 Black action camera, which will cost $399 when it’s released on Oct. 2. The company hadn’t updated its action cam since the Hero 4 in 2014. GoPro’s competitors took note of these announcements, too, and today, Garmin lowered the price of its recently released Virb Ultra 30 action cam by $100. It’s now the same price as the Hero 5 Black on Amazon.
The two com

Uber is planning on opening a new facility in Detroit, aka Motor City, which appears to be geared toward growing the ride-hail company’s self-driving car efforts. The news of the new engineering space comes a few days after Uber rolled out its driverless cars in Pittsburgh for a limited public test.Sherif Marakby, Uber’s new vice president of global vehicle programs, told Automotive News that the facility would allow the ride-hail startup a chance to work with automakers in the area

League of Legends — the massively popular online strategy game, which now boasts more than 100 million monthly players — is getting a new spinoff soon, but it’s not a video game. Developer Riot Games is working on a new board game called Mechs vs. Minions, which looks to combine the strategy elements of League with story-driven missions and lots and lots of miniature figures.
Mechs vs. Minions will offer 10 different missions, each of which takes an estimated 60 to 90 minutes t

Olympus is adding a new camera to its Pen lineup of pocket mirrorless cameras. The company just announced the Olympus Pen E-PL8 at the Photokina show in Cologne, Germany. It's another classic-looking Micro Four Thirds camera in the Pen Lite lineup, and it's arguably the best-looking E-PL camera yet.
The biggest difference from the E-PL7 is the E-PL8’s design. Olympus has refined it all around — the camera is a little bit shorter, the grip is smaller, and the body is slimmer (or at le

Since the day it launched, one of Google Photos’ more compelling features has been its automatically generated montage videos. Come home from a trip and within a day or so Google will have stitched your photos and video clips into a mini-movie complete with jaunty music and transitions. Today the company is introducing taking another step in that direction with themed "concept movies": videos generated algorithmically based on their content. Continue reading…

GoPro has finally taken the wraps off of the long-awaited Karma drone. Initially teased at the 2015 Code Conference and delayed earlier this year, the quadcopter was just shown off for the first time alongside two new action cameras at an event in Northern California. Karma will go on sale on October 23rd. It costs $799 alone, $1,099 with a Hero 5, or $999 with a Hero 5 Session.
The biggest selling point for Karma is its ease of use. That starts with a foldable design for easy storage and carryi

GoPro just officially announced the Hero 5 Black, the company’s first flagship action camera since the Hero 4 was unveiled in 2014. The company also announced the Hero 5 Session, and update to the original Session — the small, cube-shaped camera that was released last summer. The cameras were unveiled at the launch event for the GoPro Karma drone at Squaw Valley Ski Resort in Northern California, and both are compatible with GoPro’s first quadcopter. They’ll be available

Waze, the real-time traffic app owned by Google, is teaming up with transportation data firm INRIX to help drivers find the best parking spot close to their destination.
Waze recently introduced a “where to park” feature, which suggests parking lots closest to a destination and allows users to navigate there directly. Additionally, if a user doesn’t select a parking lot prior to arrival, Waze will give the option to select and navigate to one when approaching a final destinatio

What makes a house feel like a home? Is it friendly roommates, beer in the fridge, or a house plant that has a name? No, of course not. It’s seasonal decor! That’s why I’ve already picked up half a dozen pumpkin-scented candles, a pumpkin carving kit, and Halloween Oreos to outfit my new 700-square-foot apartment for the best time of the year.
But treats and candles don’t feel like enough. Honestly, I need these giant retro Halloween masks. Only then will I know satisfact

From the moment our boots hit Canadian soil for the 2016 Toronto International Film Festival, we were rushing out dispatches, writing reviews, talking to filmmakers, and — most importantly — seeing lots and lots of movies. Some of the TIFF screenings were world premieres, others were making their domestic debuts, and others may already be in your local multiplex (or on Netflix). With this year’s festival now behind us, we take a look at our favorites. These are the films we hav

Google today announced Trips, a new app that serves as a trip planner and travel guide for anyone who is exploring a new place. The free app, which is available on Android and iOS, will organize your plane tickets and hotel reservations, offer editorial guides to more than 200 cities, and make personalized recommendations based on your Google history. Best of all, it works offline: you can download everything to your phone before you leave, including maps and walking directions — sparing y

"The world just does not fit conveniently into the format of a 35mm camera." With this quote from W. Eugene Smith, Fujifilm today announces its new GFX camera system, which is built around a massive 43.8mm x 32.9mm CMOS sensor and designed to be the elite companion to Fujifilm’s critically acclaimed X series of cameras. Like the X series, the GFX camera is mirrorless, helping it be more compact, reducing "mirror shock" that might create vibration when shooting, and making for easier lens d

A video emerged this morning showing an explosive device, reportedly linked to this weekend's explosions in New York City and New Jersey, detonating after law enforcement attempted to disarm it using a bomb robot.
A suspicious backpack was discovered in a garbage can in Elizabeth, New Jersey, officials said, and — after reportedly checking to see if something valuable was inside — two men reported finding wires and a pipe in the bag, according to ABC.
There were reportedly five

Nikon has just announced a pair of rugged action cameras at Photokina and released new details of the KeyMission 360, the 360-degree camera the company announced at CES. The two new cameras also carry the KeyMission branding, and their names also correspond to their field of view. One is a more traditional GoPro-style 4K action camera that will be called the KeyMission 170, and the other is a life-logging camera called the KeyMission 80. All three will be available in October and are firsts of t

You might be wondering just how JD Fenix — the new star of the Gears of War series — and friends will be able to take on the violent hordes of locust aliens they'll come up against in the latest game. They have lots of guns, sure, but is that enough? Thankfully, Gears of War 4's newest trailer provides the answer: huge, lumbering mechs.
The new Gears isn't the first in the series to include mech suits (that honor goes to 2011's Gears of War 3), but these look like they might be

Sony has today announced a new flagship interchangeable lens camera, the A99 II. The new camera has a DSLR style body with a full-frame, 42.4-megapixel sensor. It also has a new hybrid phase detection autofocus system that has 79 dedicated cross points and 399 supplemental points. Sony has packed all of its imaging technology into this camera, including a 5-axis image stabilization system and 4K video recording with full pixel readout.
Sony says this camera is targeted towards pros, sport photog

New Yorkers’ morning commute was interrupted this morning by a chorus of emergency alerts, part of a manhunt for bombing suspect Ahmad Khan Rahami. The notification, delivered through an emergency system more often used for extreme weather warnings, told recipients to "see media" for a picture and call 911 if they saw Rahami — who the FBI is seeking for questioning in connection to a bombing in Chelsea this weekend.
All major American wireless carriers adopted an emergency alert syst

Back in September, ESPN dipped its toe into the waters of FPV drone racing with a live-stream of a three day event in New York followed by an edited one-hour broadcast. The experiment seems to have been a success, and the network has now announced a multi-year deal with one of the sport's fledgling organizing bodies, the Drone Racing League (DRL), to broadcast ten one-hour shows on ESPN and ESPN2.
These ten episodes will cover what DRL is calling its 2016 season — a series of fiv