Technology news

Amazon’s ‘Echo’ is pretty damn cool. You know what’s cooler? Hacking it to work with one of those singing fish your grandparents have been annoying you with since the late 90s. Artist Brian Kane recently demonstrated what happens when you do just that. He hacked together the soul of Amazon’s smart assistant ‘Alexa’ into the body of a ‘Big Mouth Billy Bass.’ If that’s not worthy of an award, I really must not understand science. If

Apple killed and switched all its ports over to Thunderbolt 3 the new MacBook Pros – except, ironically, the headphone jack – so now pretty much everyone has to connect their external devices via a dongle. Even your iPhone. It seems people have complained enough for Apple to take note, and the company has dropped the price of all it’s USB-C/Thunderbolt 3 adapters: “We recognize that many users, especially pros, rely on legacy connectors to get work done today and th

Google and Blizzard are opening up StarCraft II to anyone who wants to teach artificial intelligence systems how to conduct warfare, because apparently I’m the only one who has ever seen The Terminator.
Researchers can now use Google’s DeepMind A.I. to test various theories for ways that machines can learn to make sense of complicated systems, in this case Blizzard’s beloved real-time strategy game. In StarCraft II, players fight against one another by gathering

Zotac has introduced multiple mini PCs that are VR-ready and able to fit in backpacks, but now the company is planning to release a computer that comes with removable straps attached, according to Anandtech. I love an all-in-one purchase. The VR Go PC is packed with:
Intel Core i7 processor
GeForce GTX 1070 graphics card
Removable battery
2.5-inch HDD or SSD bay
One HDMI output
Two USB 3.0 ports
A power connector
A proprietary cooling system
Zotac put the HDMI, USB ports, and power connector on

Samsung says that nearly 85 percent of Note 7s have now been returned in the US, meaning there are around 285,000 phones still unaccounted for.
To get those remaining phones back, Samsung basically plans to annoy customers into returning them. It’s issuing a software update that will make a recall message pop up every time someone “turns on the screen of their Note 7.”
The update will also limit the phone’s battery life to 60 percent. It’s not clear if that’s

Players expected Blizzard to announce a new expansion for its digital-card-game-market leader Hearthstone. They didn’t think it would introduce a new card type that completely changes the way they’ll make decks.
Before, cards have belonged in one of two categories: class (Mage, Rogue, Warrior, Warlock, Priest, Paladin, Shaman, Druid, and Hunter) and neutral, which could go into any deck. You couldn’t put a Hunter card in a Priest deck, for example (unless you use

 Do you, like many others, wake up each morning, gaze upon your Amazon Echo, and think, “Damn it, Echo. Instead of a shiny cylinder, why can’t you be a singing fish?”
Good news, friend. Your dreams have come true.
On his Facebook profile, artist Brian Kane briefly demonstrates what happens when you take one of those oh-so-classy singing fish — “Big Mouth Billy… Read More

Apple is reducing the price of its new 5K LG UltraFine Display by more than 25 percent as part of an effort to ease the transition to its new line of MacBook Pros. The special promotion, which amounts to a $349 price cut for the $1,299.95 monitor, brings the product’s price under $1,000. The company is also reducing the price on the 4K version from $699.95 to $524. Both products, designed in partnership between Apple and LG, are available on Apple’s online store, with the 4K model av

GUEST: Chatbots are mostly intended to be practical and helpful. They help us with our daily tasks so that we can focus on what we do best. But it’s not all serious work.
Since we’re living in the era of connectivity, we’re connected to our favorite celebrities via Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook. The problem, of course, is that celebrities rarely say anything back. But now this empty space of conversing with your beloved stars is filled with chatbots! We can ask them about th

Chelsea Manning attempted suicide shortly after beginning her tribunal-ordered week in solitary confinement, according to a new report in The New York Times. The whistleblower confirmed to the Times that the attempt took place on October 4th, just twelve days after Manning was sentenced to solitary confinement over charges relating to an earlier suicide attempt in July. According to Manning’s defense team, the Army plans to hold a second disciplinary hearing over the October attempt, and s

Copying Snapchat is apparently more popular than ever. Following up on WhatsApp ’s latest form of flattery, now Periscope is adding ‘selfie masks’ ahead of the election so you can make yourself kinda-sorta look like Clinton or Trump. That said, Periscope isn’t going all out on the augmented reality feature the way Snapchat and Facebook are. These are simple overlays with moving mouths, not the the more realistic variety that map a texture onto your face. It’s proba

 And the post-Alphabet Google rebranding continues. Google Capital — the company’s venture arm that focuses on growth-stage companies (read: those that have proven their idea and are now growing) as opposed to earlier-stage startups — is now “CapitalG.” All this, it’s worth noting, is a separate thing from GV, Alphabet’s investment arm that focuses on… Read More

Apple today temporarily lowered the prices of some of its accessories for connecting to its new MacBook Pro laptops, each of which comes with up to four USB-C ports and a headphone jack but no other ports.
The gesture, which is in place through December 31, follows complaints about perceived connectivity issues in the new high-end computers, particularly given their high prices. And it comes after Apple also lowered the cost of SSD upgrades for older Macs.
Here are the new prices for the dongles

This year marks the 20th anniversary of Blizzard’s dungeon crawler Diablo, and to celebrate, Blizzard is remaking the classic game — inside of Diablo 3.
a new anniversary update brings the graphics, gameplay, and style of the first game to ‘Diablo 3’
The original Diablo returns in the form of a new anniversary update called "Darkening of Tristram,” which brings the graphics, gameplay, and style of the first game to Diablo 3. The update will include a 16-level dungeo

You can probably imagine a situation where you need to see your phone screen at all times but cannot look down at it because your hands or eyes are on something else. I bet you can also imagine laughing in disgust if someone suggested you try wearing a Google Glass. Well, startup tech firm Vufine wants you to give a similar form-factor a try, and it thinks it can work because it doesn’t treat the device like a replacement for your smartphone.
Vufine’s product, which shares the same n

A couple of years ago, John Boswell made a splash when he began to autotune scientists like Neil deGrasse Tyson and Carl Sagan in a series called Symphony of Science. He’s since shifted his focus to pop culture, and his latest work is a fantastic compilation from Netflix’s Stranger Things.
Titled Superpowers: A Stranger Things Musical, Bowell has auto-tuned Eleven, Mike, Will, Dustin, and Lucas, creating a fun and genuinely catchy track.
It's a genuinely fun and catchy track
To captu

Blizzard didn’t announce an expansion, but Diablo III is getting plenty of new content in the future.
The publisher announced during its massive BlizzCon fan event today in Anaheim, California, that a future update will bring some nostalgic additions. This year marks the franchise’s 20th anniversary. To celebrate, an update called The Darkening of Tristram will re-create the original game inside Diablo III. It will even include graphical filters that make Tristram 

Apple is cutting prices for all of its USB-C adapters following a week of complaints about the MacBook Pro’s inconvenient port situation.
The new MacBook Pro only has USB-C / Thunderbolt 3 ports, so the vast majority of the peripherals people use today will need adapters to work. Someday, all those devices will likely use USB-C, but that day is not today and the Pro users interested in Apple’s new computers have been vocal about the problem.
Apple released a statement explaining the

A developer named Brian Kane has hacked his Alexa to speak through the avatar of a wall-mounted Big Mouth Billy Bass. It’s not clear exactly how he did it, but it’s probably related to the Alexa API — opened in April just after the release of the Dot — which allows developers to embed the smart assistant in third-party hardware.
In the Facebook video, you can clearly see the animatronic fish responding to Alexa’s wake word and moving its mouth in sync with her comma

Blizzard announced that its next character will hit Overwatch in a week as part of the game’s test servers, and now we can finally detail how she will eliminate you during matches.
Sombra is all about infiltrating and debilitating the enemy team as one of the “Offense” heroes in the team-based shooter. The hacker can weaken an opponent to give her team an advantage during encounters. Blizzard has detailed how all of these attacks work, so let’s take a look.
Machine Pistol

GUEST: Although chatbots are just now gaining ground as the next “big thing” in customer service, a small number of them have actually been working behind the scenes for quite some time. SMS banking has been around since 1999, doctors send texts to remind us of our appointment, and Amazon buzzes our phone when our package is delivered. We’ve spent several years assessing chatbots’ ability to handle simple customer service tasks, and they have finally earned a spot in the

This coming Tuesday, Lyft will offer a 45 percent discount on one ride between 7AM and 8PM in 20 markets. The promotion will make it slightly cheaper to reach your local polling place if you’ve got no other way of getting there besides hailing a car. Getting back after voting will cost full price, however.Since it’s only in select markets, Lyft says eligible users will receive an email on Sunday night where they can access the 45 percent discount in the Deals of the Week section. Whi

Three members of Apple’s communications staff have left the tech giant for car companies in recent weeks, just as reports have emerged that Apple has scaled back itsauto-making plans.
Last month longtime Apple staffer Sarah O’Brien joined Tesla as senior director of communications. While at Apple, O’Brien had worked on the communications teams for music, iPhone, and most recently, Apple Watch.
More recently, Colin Smith, who had been communications director of Mac hardware

Be careful out there!
Blizzard revealed the latest expansion for its digital card game market leader Hearthstone: Heroes of Warcraft during its BlizzCon event in Anaheim, California, today. bringing back lapsed players. It’s called Mean Streets of Gadgetzan. The new cards not only give players new packs to buy, but they can keep current card-slingers engaged while potentially new players. The expansion will be out in early December.
Gadgetzan first appeared as a city in

Blizzard is launching an ambitious new e-sports league to make competitive Overwatch a lot more professional. Called the Overwatch League, the new organization was announced at the developer’s annual BlizzCon convention in Anaheim. Blizzard describes it as “a world-class sports ecosystem for professional Overwatch competition.” The league will begin play some time next year.
The structure of the league will somewhat resemble a traditional pro sports league. Blizzard will start

WhatsApp and Facebook aren’t done copying Snapchat. According to a report by Mashable, Facebook-owned messaging platform WhatsApp is testing image-sharing features akin to those of Snapchat, or *cough* Instagram. The project, called ‘Status,’ was unearthed in recent beta releases of both the iOS and Android version of WhatsApp. Status occupies a space in the tab menu between Chats and Calls and eventually you’ll be able to add your own captions and hand-wr

Death isn’t the end of a beloved Blizzard character.
The developer announced today during the opening ceremonies for BlizzCon in Anaheim, California, that Varian Wyrnn and Ragnaros will become the newest characters in Heroes of the Storm, the company’s multiplayer online battle arena (MOBA). New characters keep players engaged in the free-to-play PC title, giving them a reason to either come back to the game or try something new.
Varian Wyrnn was the leader of the Alliance

It’s been almost two months since Apple courageously lead us into its brave, new, headphone-jack-less future with the iPhone 7. And although it included a helpful dongle for connecting the now-defunct adapter, it’s really easy to lose. Trust me. I’ve almost lost mine roughly a dozen times so far.The fittingly named Uncourage is a keychain with a male headphone plug on it so you can attach your headphone adapter into it when you’re not using it with your phone. So, if you&

DeepMind, the British artificial intelligence company that's now a part of Google, stunned the world back in March when its AlphaGo AI defeated world-champion Go player Lee Se-dol to achieve one of the most sought-after feats in computer science. The ancient Chinese board game of Go was considered the most difficult "perfect information" game for computers to crack, as the dizzying complexity produced by its simple rules requires a highly advanced degree of intuition to play at a serious level,

Is this boring NFL season getting you down? Well, we have some more modern competition to look forward to soon.
Blizzard today announced the details for its new Overwatch League, an official organization designed to promote professional, competitive play of its hit team-based shooter. Overwatch is quickly becoming one of the most popular games in the growing esports market that’s worth $493 million. This official league, which will launch in 2017, from Blizzard will help grow its appe

Blizzard Entertainment has teased the hidden character Sombra since launching the game in May, and now we know who it is.
Sombra is a stealthy character with hacking capabilities, we learned today. She is playable at BlizzCon, and she’ll roll to the public test servers next week. Blizzard boss Mike Morhaime also showed off a new map called Oasis as well as an Arcade mode that has 1-versus-1 and 3-versus-3 arena-style game modes. Arcade will come with a new map called Ecopoint Antarcti

After months of teasers and anticipation, Blizzard has finally announced Sombra, the second hero to be added to Overwatch. Sombra joins the first new character, Ana, and Eichenwald— the first additional map — as part of the Blizzard’s plan to continue to support the game with new updates post-launch.
In the game’s fiction, Sombra is a hacker who’s a member of the Los Muertos gang of Mexico, and works with the villainous Talon organization, along with the characters