Technology news

Much has been said about Apple’s fledgling automative efforts, with reports of its Project Titan car division shifting its focus away from building a vehicle and toward automation and software. Today on an earnings call, CEO Tim Cook offered perhaps the most definitive recognition that his company was eyeing the auto industry. Although in typical Apple fashion, Cook kept it light on details when asked to elaborate on what he thinks the company can bring to the table.
"I can’t sp

Apple just reported its fourth quarter earnings for 2016, showing a decline in iPhone sales for the third consecutive quarter and the first full-year drop in revenue since 2001. iPad sales were down as well, both year over year (-6 percent) and from the third quarter of this year (-7 percent). Just 9.3 million iPads sold this quarter.
This isn't exactly surprising when you look at trends in the broader the tablet market. According to research firm IDC, worldwide tablet shipments were d

Wire, the sleek messaging app with some security chops, is getting a new feature today: timed, or ‘ephemeral’ messaging. Basically, it’s like the timers in Snapchat; you can make a message self-destruct after a certain amount of time. Google introduced a similar feature with Allo, and Facebook has tested the idea too, but Wire has a bit of additional security credibility with end-to-end encryption on all of its messages. Wire allows you to alternate be

For the first time since 2001, Apple's annual revenue has declined year over year, falling from $233.7 billion in 2015 to $217 billion in the 2016 fiscal year. That 9 percent decline marks the first annual revenue drop since 2001, largely due to the continued decline in iPhone sales, down 5 percent year over year.
It's clear Apple has its work cut out for it to right the fiscal ship — and it's likely that it will happen given the expectations for next year's iPhone — but right now it

Tesla was featured for the first time in Consumer Reports’ annual survey of vehicle reliability, but not in a good way. The upstart electric car company was ranked near the bottom, 25 out of 29, with the publication knocking the Model X SUV for "abundant problems, including frequent malfunctions of the falcon-wing doors, water leaks, and infotainment and climate-control system problems."
The below-average ranking was a shift for Consumer Reports, which previously broke its own rating syste

The big story over the last six months of Apple earnings has been the dreaded decline in iPhone sales. After more than a decade of record-setting revenue growth, the company finally saw consumer demand for its flagship smartphone dip down. During the fiscal fourth quarter ended September 24, Apple continued that trend with revenue shrinking 9.8 percent to $46.9 billion from the same period one year earlier. That's about on par with analyst expectations.
This decline was mainly dri

So it turns out that images of Apple's new MacBook Pro, set to be unveiled on Thursday, are actually hiding inside the latest macOS Sierra update. They confirm that Jony Ive and Apple's designers have added a touch bar to the company's top-of-the-line laptop. To make room for that, Apple completely got rid of the function keys that've been at the top of Mac keyboards for years. Physical esc key? Gone. Same for the brightness buttons and volume controls. They're history. Apple wisely se

If there has been one refrain from Apple fans over the past year, it’s that the Mac is well overdue for an upgrade. This week, it looks like it’s finally going to get one.
Apple is holding an event at its Cupertino campus on Thursday where it’s expected to unveil some major Mac updates, with the highlight being a redesigned MacBook Pro. Updates for the MacBook Air and iMac are also expected. And some other products, like Apple’s AirPods, could get a release date, too.
The

Apple is widely expected to unveil a redesigned MacBook Pro at an event on Thursday, but it looks like it may have let a couple images slip out early. MacRumors spotted a pair of images hidden inside yesterday's update to macOS Sierra, both of which show a new MacBook Pro, a touch panel above its keyboard, and a fingerprint reader.
The images show a narrower MacBook Pro with slimmer bezels around both the keys and screen. The keys all look to be flatter, likely adopting the same slim d

Apple made a bit of a woopsy and leaked out the new MacBook Pro ahead of its October 27 event, ‘Magic Toolbar’ and all. As spotted by MacRumors, an update to macOS Sierra 10.12.1  – which went out yesterday – includes a clear look at the new OLED touch panel above the keyboard. As a recap, the panel is set to replace the function keys and provide some additional shortcuts and features. You can see it provide TouchID supporrt for Apple Pay on the right corner, a

Wireless speakers are great for a vast number of reasons, but the most obvious one is that they make it super easy to play music or other audio in your home without having to plug into to anything. But while most wireless speakers, whether they use Wi-Fi, such as Sonos and Google Cast models, or Bluetooth, aren’t as well designed as hi-fi speakers used to be. The modern speaker is meant to blend into the decor of your home, not be a piece of it.
Como Audio is looking to change that with it

It’s February in New York City, and I’m at a basement music venue in Brooklyn. I’m waiting to see Chumped, one of my favorite young punk bands, play one of their final shows. An opening act is playing pretty, slow indie music — which I’m fine with, but it feels a bit like the wrong kind of setup for the breathless set I’m expecting from Chumped. Their sound doesn’t quite fit. So I change it.I pop in some wireless earbuds, pull out my phone, and start pla

Slack took workplace conversation by storm, and after Facebook just released its take on the concept, now Microsoft is looking to for its own piece of the market. A report by MSPoweruser suggests that the company is set to unveil “Microsoft Teams” next week. We’ve known it was coming for a while now. The app, which was previously known as Skype Teams, looks a fair bit like Slack from the leaked images, but with Office, Outlook and OneDrive integra

Europe and Russia’s ExoMars lander may have suffered a computer glitch during its descent to Mars last week, ultimately causing it to crash-land into the planet’s surface, Nature reports. As the lander fell, the mysterious software bug may have caused the vehicle to think it was closer to the ground than it actually was, a lead researcher with the European Space Agency suggests. That may be why the whole landing sequence was thrown out of whack. Continue reading…

AT&T’s effort to build a cable alternative for cord cutters now has a price. AT&T CEO Randall Stephenson said today that DirecTV Now will launch next month for $35 a month with access to more than 100 channels, including channels from Disney and Time Warner. It competes with similar offerings from Sling, whose package starts at $20 a month for fewer channels, and PlayStation Vue, which starts at $40 for around 60 channels.
DirecTV Now was announced in March. It will allow consumers

Living in space can take its toll on an astronaut’s back, causing the muscles within the spine to weaken over time, a new study confirms. In microgravity, these muscles are prone to atrophy, and that causes the bones in the spine to stiffen and straighten out. Such body changes could explain why so many astronauts suffer from back pain after taking trips to lower-Earth orbit. And fixing this problem may be crucial if NASA wants to send humans to Mars someday. Continue reading…

Google has been getting serious about making hardware recently, what with a couple of new phones, a smarthub, and a wireless router. Now it’s looking to tackle the office too. The company today announced Jamboard, a $6,000, 55-inch whiteboard that is of course connected to the cloud and the recently revamped G Suite. It’s basically a 4K touchscreen computer that you can use like your standard digital whiteboard, but with extra collaboration and cloud tricks. Your sketches and n

Quite quickly, Duet Display has become the iPad’s killer app. So, what does it do? In a nutshell, it allows the user to transform their iPad into a second display. Handy, right? Well, it’s about to get even better, provided you have an iPad Pro. Duet Display Pro now supports the Apple Pencil. This means that you can draw on your iPad, and have it show up on your computer, much like a graphics tablet would. Duet Display has also been updated to make drawing more responsive,

Vue are prescription, crowdfunded glasses that launched on Kickstarter today and function as a fitness tracker, bone conduction headphones, and a Bluetooth mic for phone calls. The glasses pair with phones through a companion iOS / Android app, so wearers can also track their glasses if they lose them. While Vue are definitely more decked out than typical prescription glasses, they’re no where near as technical as Google Glass and fit in more as a novelty item.
I’m sure there&rs

When Charlie Brooker was looking for directors for the third season of his future-horror series Black Mirror, Dan Trachtenberg must have seemed like a natural for “Playtest,” the season’s second episode. Brooker’s script has a down-and-out American trying to earn some fast cash in London by playtesting a virtual reality horror game for a secretive publisher. The game takes place in a haunted house setting where new threats lurk around every corner, but part of the threat

Lost in all of the hype surrounding the reveal of the stunningly beautiful Mi Mix, Xiaomi also took the wraps off its newest virtual reality headset, the Mi VR. The new headset, which is designed to work with the latest generation of Xiaomi smartphones including the Mi 5 and Mi Note 2, will only cost you $29, keeping with Xiaomi's goal of offering solid hardware at lower prices.The new Mi VR looks far better than Xiaomi's first VR attempt at building a virtual reality headset, the Mi V

Google is moving into office hardware today with Jamboard, a new 4K digital whiteboard. Just like Microsoft's Surface Hub, Google's Jamboard is a 55-inch 4K touchscreen, but Google is using Android and a new whiteboard app to power its giant display. It's a direct move for Google's continued competition with Microsoft in businesses and the enterprise, and the Jamboard is designed for businesses who already use Google Apps.
Google's screen supports up to 16 simultaneous touch inputs (compare

One of Uber’s self-driving Volvo XC90 SUVs has been spotted out in the wild. A tipster in Pittsburgh sent us this image, as well as the video below, that confirms that Uber is in the process of testing out the newest member of its self-driving vehicle fleet. The Volvo was spotted on Morewood Street, in front of the Carnegie Mellon campus around 5PM on Monday, the tipster said.As of last month, Uber said its self-driving Volvos were still under development, so this would mark one of the fir

In this blog series, we shed some light on our marketing approach at The Next Web through Web analytics, Search Engine Optimization (SEO), Conversion Rate Optimization (CRO), social media, and more. This blog post will dive deeper into what we’ve been doing with the newly released option to use Google Tag Manager on AMP Pages. Also we’ll be sharing parts of The Next Web’s container that we’ve been using. We’ve been working with Google for a while now to implem

Microsoft is planning to unveil its Slack competitor at an Office event in New York City next week. Originally dubbed Skype Teams internally, Microsoft will launch the service as Microsoft Teams once it's broadly available for businesses and schools to make use of. Just like Slack, it's a web-powered chat service that's designed for teams of colleagues or school classes to collaborate.
Thanks to leaked screenshots, we already know it looks a lot like Slack. There are channels for groups, al

A new tablet called Loop was unveiled at CES this year and is now available to order. The whole goal for Loop is to become the new kitchen TV, although it doesn't even support Netflix so I don't think that'll ever happen. Sure, you could just use a tablet or smartphone in the kitchen, but the creators behind Loop think you’ll be into their product’s throwback design, 10-inch HD display, and voice controls. Really, Loop is just a glorified picture frame that also supports video a

Fast & Furious producer Justin Lin is trading drag racing for AI-driven cars with a reboot of the ‘80s crime-fighting show Knight Rider.The digital series, which is currently in development, is expected to launch in 2017. It’s a joint venture between Machinima — best known for productions like Mortal Kombat: Legacy 2 and Street Fighter: Assassin’s Fist — NBCUniversal Brand Development, and Lin’s digital media company YouOffendMeYouOffendMyFamily (YOMYOMF).

If you've never heard of Duet Display and you're the owner of an iPad, do this one good thing for yourself and download it immediately. Yes, it's $20, but that's a steal for an app that lets you use your Mac or Windows PC as a second monitor, making you feel like a multi-tasking wizard. Plus, the app is temporarily on sale for the next week at $10 to promote the new Pro version of their app, which adds pressure and tilt sensitivity. The update is aimed at artists to use as a profe

The official trailer for Netflix's much-hyped Gilmore Girls revival is here, and if you're the sort of person that interests, you might want to sit down and take a deep breath before you watch it.
Everyone is back. All of the casting rumors were true, and you'll see Kelly Bishop as Emily Gilmore, Melissa McCarthy as Sookie St. James, and, crucially, Sean Gunn as Kirk. All of Rory's old loves are accounted for as well, though Jess is the only one who speaks (to reassure Rory that she's "still a c

The UK has approved the addition of a third runway to Heathrow airport in London — a decision that has taken decades to come to and that has already been heavily criticized by members of the government. Businesses have said increasing airport capacity in London is a must, but expanding any of the city's existing airports (there are six in total) means clashes with nearby residents. Environmental campaigners have also objected to the new runway, which will hamper the UK's pledged reduc

The third season of Charlie Brooker's Black Mirror, a Twilight Zone-esque anthology TV series about technological anxieties and possible futures, was released on Netflix on October 21st. It's the first season of the show produced by Netflix, after two three-episode series and a special produced by Britain's Channel 4. In this series, six writers will look at each of the third season's six episodes to see what they have to say about current culture and projected fears. Episode 1 is here.**Wa

500 Startups‘ Founder and Partner Dave McClure is one of the most renowned angel investors in Silicon Valley. His name is often placed on an elite list that includes the likes of Chris Sacca, Keith Rabois and Peter Thiel. People call them the Super Angels: a hybrid between VCs and angels who invest big, and invest early. In the 15 years before founding 500 Startups, Dave built and sold an early technology consultancy company, worked as Director of Marketing for PayPal, Acting Investment D

In the early 2000s, the digital photography revolution made it possible for miniaturized camera hardware and image sensors to be packed into cell phones without adding a significant amount of weight. Then the iPhone was announced. As the smartphone war began, the camera became an important part of the ongoing spec race. Competitors tried to beat Apple in making an excellent camera (and app) that was easy to use — and it took until this year for that to start happening.Now, two-thirds of ad

Back in the day, when computers didn’t have graphical interfaces yet, people had to come up with creative ways to display pictures on their screens. That turned out to be ASCII art. By using the letters and symbols they had available, early computer users were able to create crude images of anything they wanted. Some of them would be beautiful pieces of art, and others would just be images of naked people. Then bitmaps came along, and we were suddenly able to display pictures made up by p

Smartwatches are here to stay, and are more adept than ever at making our lives easier. But while many premium models cost hundreds of dollars, the Martian Notifier Smartwatch seamlessly blends style and cutting-edge tech at a fraction of the cost. For a limited time, you can pick up the Martian Notifier Smartwatch for just $29.99 on TNW Deals. The Martian may look like a classic analog watch, but it packs the functionality of a high-end wearable and was even named a Top 4 Best Smartwatch by Co

When it comes to virtual and augmented reality, it’s not a question of if they will hit mainstream adoption, but when. Virtual reality sales are expected to hit $1B this year and a recent Nielsen study even showed that 24 percent of consumers plan to purchase a VR device this year. From storytelling to gaming to journalism, the impact of these new technologies, once they hit the tipping point, is going to be massive. Current usage is limited mostly to early adopters, primarily those with