Technology news

LOS ANGELES — The 2016 Hearthstone World Championship series was down to two Europeans, and after an exciting 4-2 match, Pavel "Pavel" Beltukov defeated Artem "DrHippi" Kravets in Saturday's BlizzCon grand finals.
Pavel, 18, walked away with the $250,000 first place prize after working his way through the playoffs, knocking out powerhouse players Amnesiac and Jasonzhou. DrHippi took $150,000 of the $1 million prize pool.
SEE ALSO: Big changes are coming to 'Hearthstone' esports in 2017
DrH

With the Chicago Cubs' World Series victory parade on Friday, it's official: Baseball season is over.
This year brought baseball fans highs and lows, as each season does. But in 2016, it felt like we said goodbye more often than usual, whether it was premature or a long time coming. With every goodbye came an equally potent hello.
Here's the story of the 2016 MLB season.
SEE ALSO: Anthony Rizzo couldn't help but cry when talking about David Ross at the Cubs victory parade
Hello,the 2016 World Se

The $69 Pocket C.H.I.P. computer has gotten a software update that enables 3D acceleration on the ARM-based device. Now it can run games such as Quake III.
The updated software and device are now available for holiday gift purchases. The Pocket Chip (spelled Pocket C.H.I.P. by the company) and its sister product Chip are targeted at that Maker community, or do-it-yourself hardware enthusiasts who like to tinker.
Next Thing Co. has released an alpha image for the Pocket Chip device that features

You’re a new grad, maybe in a new city with a new job, apartment and friends. But not all the new things about postgrad life are fun and sparkly; you likely have a new debt to deal with, too.If you graduated in May, your first student loan payment will probably come due next month. And if you’re like a lot of recent graduates, you’re craving some structure amid all the newness. Follow this three-step plan to help you start chipping away at your student debt.
Step 1: B

The 2016 Pittsburgh Steelers so far have a decent 4-3 NFL record. But when it comes to the team's social media game, it may have already won the Super Bowl. 
On Friday, the team's Twitter account posted the players' version of the incredibly popular #MannequinChallenge, a phenomenon that started in high schools and is now, apparently, sweeping up adults as well. 
But it's not just the team taking part. Reporters, cameramen and even trainers are in on it, too, making this particular Ma

Kissing is one of those things everyone does a little differently. Here is the evidence.
Cut Video somehow convinced 100 people to smooch plexiglass for a new video called "100 People Show Us How They Kiss." The results are mostly uncomfortable to watch, but hey! We can all take away a few tips, too.
And yes, everyone kissed the same piece of plexiglass. Cut Video assures viewers it was sanitized between participants.Benedict Cumberbatch even looks cool taking a dump on 'SNL'
Pittsburgh Steeler

The raging dumpster fire that is the Samsung Galaxy Note7 has been, for the most part, extinguished. But the company is so worried about stubborn users who won't return the device that it continues to deliver public status updates on the situation. 
The latest came this Friday in a note on the Samsung U.S. website, where the company claimed that, "85 percent of all recalled Galaxy Note7 devices have been replaced through the U.S. Note7 Refund and Exchange Program."
SEE ALSO: Samsung's reven

Social-game developers have a tough challenge trying to keep people coming back to their game for as long as possible, but no one strategy is going to hook everyone — and that’s where Optimove wants to help.
Optimove is a retention and marketing firm that has broken down social-game players into six major categories and provided a look at some of the actions that developers can take to win them over and maximize lifetime value. While a big part of the free-to-play space is obsessed w

When life's not like a box of chocolates, it's sometimes like an old-school video game. Okay, not really—but this 8-bit retelling of Forrest Gump will make you wish it was.
Our CineFix series, 8-Bit Cinema, "gamifies" your favorite movies and TV shows into '80s arcade- and NES-inspired action. 
Subscribe to CineFix for more videos: https://www.youtube.com/c/cinefix Read more...More about Mashable Video, Tom Hanks, Forrest Gump, 8 Bit Cinema, and Movies

Tensions are high in the world of penguin relationships this week.
In a very graphic new video from National Geographic, a male penguin returns home to his mate only to find her with another male penguin.
Then, a battle ensues and, well, let's just say the hero doesn't always come out on top.
SEE ALSO: This illustrator is turning sad facts about animals into hilarious cartoons
Yes, friends, it's true: after a bloody, bloody battle, the female penguin waddled away with the other man.The internet

Tech innovators in the self-driving car and AI industries talk a lot about how many human jobs will be innovated out of existence, but they rarely explain what will happen to all those newly jobless humans. As usual, Tesla and SpaceX founder Elon Musk responds to an obvious question with an answer that may surprise some. 
In an interview with CNBC on Friday, Musk said that he believes the solution to taking care of human workers who are displaced by robots and software is creating a (presum

LOS ANGELES — When The Crown creator Peter Morgan looked to American actors in search of their Winston Churchill, many had their doubts.
After all, Churchill is one of England's most iconic political figures — and the series is all about the rise of Queen Elizabeth II (Claire Foy).
But turns out the right actor — and a stellar fat suit — can do wonders.
"You would think it would be a difficult decision, but I was saying yes halfway through the conversation with my agent,"

GUEST: CrunchBase data on US funded startups shows that in 2014, only 18 percent – about 1 in 5 – had at least one female founder. It’s a gain over 2009, when that number was only 9.5 percent – but there is still a lot of room for improvement.
I know this firsthand. I was one of 30 female founders in a batch of 300 founders earlier this year at Y Combinator. And I’m frequently asked, “Why aren’t there more female startup founders?”
It’s an im

Dogs deserve the joy of a secret menu, too.
Starbucks has a special drink for dogs that isn't commercially advertised, and one adorable puppy named Leopold just discovered it.
An espresso cup with a dollop of whipped cream, the 'puppuccino' was an instant hit with the 4 1/2-month-old German Shepherd, who had it for the first time on Wednesday.
SEE ALSO: Having a rough day? Here's a Japanese dog wearing cardboard cutouts
Leo sniffed the cup "a lot before diving in, and kept looking back and forth

Editor's note: This is the 41st entry in the writer's project to read one book about each of the U.S. Presidents in the year prior to Election Day 2016. Follow Marcus' progress at the @44in52 Twitter account and the 44 in 52 Spreadsheet.
One of the better parts of this project has been to see clearly how a president's legacy evolves over time.
George H.W. Bush is a perfect example: a man maligned by members of both parties at the end of his only term in office, he has lived to see that legacy re

McDonalds has long been a leader in the fast food industry, but it has fallen behind its competitors in one big way: it hasn’t provided customers with a way to order and pay for their meals via smartphone or other mobile device. Now, the company is getting ready to roll out mobile order-and-pay technology, according to Business Insider.
A company representative told Business Insider that the technology will initially roll out to the United States and several international markets next year

The makers of Hitman at Danish developer IO Interactive pioneered a new model for releasing a major video game with six episodes released over eight months. The full seasons of “assassination tourism” comes to a close with this week’s Hokkaido episode.
In the games, you can live out the fantasy of being Agent 47, a professional killer who goes to exotic places, dresses in tuxedos, drives fancy cars, and assassinates people without mercy.
The first installment arrived in March&n

As the election cycle comes to a close, we know there's one phrase you're dying to remember forever: "screaming carrot demon."
Fortunately, Samantha Bee has immortalized that epithet — alongside every other phrase she's used to describe Donald Trump — in a very thorough supercut called the "official Trump Thesaurus."
This will make for great reference material the next time you are writing a strongly worded letter to one of your enemies.Carrie won't stand down in 'Homeland' Season 6

VB LIVE: Loyalty is the age-old metric that can make or break your business; AI is the hot new technology that’s transforming marketing as we know it. May-December romance? These marketing masters think so. Join this VB Live event for insight into how AI messaging can more than triple engagement.
Register here for free.
Your customers may like artificial intelligence more than they like you. A lot more. For instance, loyalty app Flok found that when AI is at the wheel, push marketing desig

GUEST: Lately, those saying that fintech lenders have been overvalued are being vindicated by an across-the-board slashing of valuations. Numerous fintech lenders have taken down rounds or markdowns, while Wall Street has largely pummeled the few companies brave enough to enter an IPO. Indeed, as of this writing, Lending Club, OnDeck Capital, and Enova have each lost major ground versus their respective IPO share prices.
This is a troubling trend for all companies in this space. It und

There’s an appealing aesthetic to old fashioned natural science illustrations, so when Katrina McHugh was looking for a subject for the 100 Day Project, she looked to a set of set of vintage encyclopedias that she had inherited from her grandfather as inspiration. Katrina McHughThe 100 Days Project comes from designer Elle Luna, who challenged creators to take create something new for 100 days, between April and July of this year. The goal wasn’t exactly a finished product: it was &l

There has been more talk of dongles now that Apple has gone and done it: excised all ports on the new MacBook Pros except one: USB-C. It is good and right to be unhappy that there aren’t any standard USB-A ports, MagSafe, nor SD card slots on these new MacBook Pros. If that gives you serious pause, I am with you and don’t have any easy answers beyond “buy the dongles and deal with them.” Lucky for you, yesterday Apple relented a bit and slashed the prices on many of its a

Just looking at Yomawari: Night Alone, a survival horror game available on Steam and PlayStation Vita, it’s hard to imagine how it could be scary. It stars a cute little girl with a big red bow in her hair, and it features a charming 2D art style that gives it the feel of a pleasant modern-day anime. But once you start playing — preferably with the lights off and headphones on — it becomes immediately clear. For such a cute, simple game, Yomawari is incredibly frightening.
The

Chandrakant Patel has a deep history working on hardware and fundamental science at Hewlett-Packard, and he has used that background to create a vision for the future of technology that combines the physical and digital worlds.
He hopes to inspire his fellow HP colleagues and the rest of the tech world on a new decades-long path. Patel is a senior fellow and the chief engineer at Hewlett-Packard. That’s an important and rare position, as HP has more than 50,000 employees in 170 countr

GUEST: If you’re a whip-smart investor with big bucks to spend, chances are you’ve got your fingers in the AI pie.
It’s a market where $50 million is chump change, so if you really want to play with the high rollers you’ll need more room on the check.
Sentient’s up to $144 million in an AI platform play, while Vicarious Systems has thrown $67 million at AI algorithms.
So it’s pretty fair to say that if you’re a bot, you’re going to enjoy a top-notc

SpaceX CEO Elon Musk says that his company has finally gotten to the bottom of the September 1st Falcon 9 explosion — claiming it was the “toughest puzzle” they’ve ever had to solve. And now that the problem is known, he expects SpaceX to return to flight in mid-December.
Speaking on CNBC yesterday, Musk said “it basically involves liquid helium, advanced carbon fiber composites, and solid oxygen. Oxygen so cold that it actually enters solid phase.”
“Oxy

In October, news broke that the CIA was preparing options to launch a cyberattack against Russia following revelations that the country was likely behind hacks at the Democratic National Committee earlier this summer. Now, a source has told NBC News that the US has penetrated key Russian systems, and will be ready to take action in case the country decides to interfere with next week’s elections.
The US is preparing in case it is "attacked in a significant way"
The systems allegedly includ

Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare has a better story than it has had for some time. And one of the reasons is that Activision’s Infinity Ward studio recruited a couple of veterans from Naughty Dog, the maker of narrative-driven video games such as Uncharted and The Last of Us.
One of the new recruits was Taylor Kurosaki, the narrative director at Infinity Ward. He helped get the studio on track after the heavily criticized Call of Duty: Ghosts from 2013. That game had to be made in just two y

What a good few weeks for movies — I feel like there are a ton of interesting and exciting things out right now. Last Saturday night, I went to go see Moonlight, which is as amazing as everyone’s been saying. It’s so so well done, with such care put into its characters and a brilliantly effective story structure. You should check out what my colleague Tasha Robinson wrote about it for a more detailed look.
I happened to go see the movie at, what I did not realize at the time, w

GUEST: Last year was the first time SparkLabs revealed our rankings for the top 10 startup ecosystems in the world here on VentureBeat. Now I’m excited to present our update for 2016.The top 10 haven’t changed, but there has been movement within the rankings. Los Angeles has jumped two spots up, replacing Seoul in the number five spot. This step up was driven by the increase in the number of unicorns and exits from Oculus to Dollar Shave Club to Snapchat’s impending IPO.
All th

Birds with human arms have a long history.Though I am new to the phenomenon, I’m confident when I tell you that people have been making images of birds with human arms for eight years and in that time no one has so much as intimated the reasoning behind birds with human arms.Nonetheless, I believe there’s a value in chronicling the history of this majestic art form.
2008
On August 11th, 2008, Reelapse.com form user “Black Jacques” created a thread called “Post pictu

In a bid to increase user interest in its Moto Z, Motorola is partnering with Indiegogo to launch a contest to find the best ideas for Moto Mods. Motorola wants developers to enter its Moto Mods Developer contest and submit ideas that could eventually end up getting attached to your modular device.
Developers who submit ideas will have a chance to attend hackathons in San Francisco and New York in December, and — once they have a working prototype of their Moto Mod — launch a crowdfu

You can now shop for Amazon Alexa skills the same way you shop for anything else on Amazon.com, the company announced today.
Owners of Amazon Alexa-enabled devices like an Echo or Tap can find, enable, or disable skills via an Alexa skills marketplace or dedicated URLs for individual skills.
The single website to find all Alexa skills launches the same day as Google Home, immediately one of Amazon’s top competitors in the race to place an intelligent assistant inside co

Microsoft today announced a few updates related to its Kinect sensor.
For one thing, the company said that it has followed through with its promise to expose RGB, depth, and infrared data from the Kinect for third-party Universal Windows Platform (UWP) applications to use, with the launch of a new Kinect driver for Windows 10.
But also, the new driver makes it possible for end users to easily set up the Kinect to function as a simple webcam. There were other ways to do this, including code in th

 Remember when Pokemon GO got a new system for finding nearby Pokemon (to replace the one that’d broke almost immediately after launch) … but it worked pretty much exclusively in San Francisco? Well, good news/bad news time. The good news: more people outside of San Francisco are getting it now! The bad news: its still not for everybody. The company just announced a small roll out on… Read More

(Reuters) – E-commerce menswear company Bonobos is speaking to investors about raising $100 million in a new round of funding that would value the company roughly at half a billion dollars, according to people familiar with the matter.
Bonobos is using the new funds to expand its retail footprint, highlighting the crossover that e-commerce companies are making into traditional brick and mortar retail as they push for growth, the sources said on Friday.
Bonobos, which is profitable, generat

Tune in, and zone out. This captivating glimpse of the Aurora Borealis — aka the Northern Lights — is the perfect start to your weekend. Shot by the talented filmmakers at ‘More than Just Parks,’ the time-lapse video captures the majestic display over Minnesota’s Voyageurs National Park in stunning 8k. Aside from the near-perfect visuals, you’ll get ever-so appropriate musical accompaniment featuring the stylings of Oh Wonder with the

Startup founders and some members of the Bots Facebook group are accusing its creator, Matt Schlicht, of misleading them about his intentions. In May, Schlicht asked for and received more than 100 pitch decks from entrepreneurs after offering to help connect them with investors. The furor erupted this week when Schlicht launched his own bot startup, Octane AI.
“It’s frustrating because he was creating a competing product, and had all of our information for months, and we had no

BlizzCon is underway in Anaheim, California, and publisher Blizzard Entertainment used its annual massive fan event to make several big announcements. But don’t go back and sit through the video just to get the news because you were busy when it was livestreaming — that’s for suckers.
We’ve gathered up all the major headlines for you right here:
Overwatch gets new character, maps, and modes
Overwatch is about to get a major content drop that includes the new characte