Technology news

GUEST: I was talking to Eric Bahn from 500 Startups the other night. He was telling me how he had once missed an investor meeting because his flight out of London got delayed — a scenario I’ve heard multiple times before. But Eric concluded with something that stood out to me:
“I think the worst thing in all of this was the feeling of betrayal because of the complete absence of empathy or even slightest desire to help on behalf of the airline staff. Knowing that you’re at

If artificial intelligence (AI) hadn’t hit the mainstream before, it did this year. Google chief executive Sundar Pichai came through with the best sound bite, saying that the world is going from being “mobile-first” to “AI-first.”
Apple squished AI into the iPhone, and Google stuck it in the Pixel. Facebook brought it to the News Feed, and Microsoft put it in Word. Samsung bought AI startup Viv to catch up with Apple’s Siri virtual assistant. And messaging ap

On November 7th, Tesla announced that customers buying cars after January 1st, 2017 would no longer receive unlimited charging within the company’s Supercharger network. Today, Tesla announced it will keep dangling that carrot for new Model S and X customers until January 15th, giving prospective buyers another two weeks to enjoy unlimited charging.After that date, Tesla’s new plan announced last year should kick in, giving new buyers 400 kWh a year of free Supercharging credits, goo

Building on the most recent upgrade to the 13-inch XPS laptop, it looks like Dell is about to make a 2-in-1 version. First spotted by Windows Central, a convertible XPS 13 with what looks like an Infinity Edge display has appeared on Dell’s website. There are no other details yet, but if Dell builds on everything it got right with last year’s impressive model it should be a contender if it appears at CES 2017.The XPS 13 that Dell introduced in 2015 was a great look at the future of l

REVIEW: The 2016 MacBook Pro is scandalous. Relative to its predecessor, it’s missing ports, short on battery life, skimpy in the keyboard department, and more expensive.
Following reports of battery issues, Apple ultimately chose to remove its estimate of how long the battery would last. Consumer Reports declined to recommend the device.
Me, personally? I really like this laptop, even with its imperfections.
It is thinner and lighter. More of the case is made out of aluminum. The spe

The thing that keeps me coming back to cars is how they creep into most every aspect of our lives. The obvious reason is that we spend a good portion of our time inside of them. An overwhelming 91 percent of Americans use their personal vehicles to get to work, the average American spends 55 minutes behind the wheel a day, and Americans make 1.1 billion trips everyday, according to the US Department of Transportation.
Car companies have been right in our face for a long time, but now tech compan

Leah Reich was one of the first internet advice columnists. Her column "Ask Leah" ran on IGN, where she gave advice to gamers for two and a half years. During the day, Leah is Slack’s user researcher, but her views here do not represent her employer. How to be Human runs every other Sunday. You can write to her at [email protected] and read more How to be Human here.
Hey Leah,
What’s the best way to handle fear?
B
Hey B,There is no “best” way to handle fear. I mean, ma

Google Assistant and the smart speaker Google Home have some opinions on how to be a better person in 2017.
Ask “What should my New Year’s resolution be?” and the AI assistant will tell you to do things like write a novel or pick up calligraphy.
Here are the five answers to the question Google Assistant gave VentureBeat when we asked earlier today.
Nothing earth-shattering or controversial about this ability, but it’s not a question Alexa or Siri attempt to answer.1. You

Merch took over 2016.While fast fashion companies, like Zara and H&M, failed us with predictable designs and a tired ‘70s aesthetic, celebrity merch had a moment. In fact, merch inspired fast fashion companies. Kanye Wests puts calligraphy on a couple shirts, and suddenly everybody is covering their lines in loopy “O”s and curly “G”s.
Celebrity merch in 2016 is paradoxically more accessible and fashionably limited. No longer do fans have to prove their love to a

It’s a new year, and just in case you wanted more to read after all the great books that 2016 gave us, prepare yourself. 2017 is going to have a ton of new books to dive into.I always like January for this reason: it’s a good time to take a look at the rest of the year, to see just what’s coming up that we should be getting excited for. We’ll have a broad 2017 book forecast in a couple of days, but that doesn’t mean that we can’t start off the new year by taki

OPINION: I can’t do this anymore.
I don’t enjoy staring blankly into this abyss every night, my clenched jaw lit by the glow of someone else’s stream of consciousness (not even in chronological order).
I don’t want to talk about editing tweets, or argue with Twitter eggs, or watch Trump fuss about Vanity Fair.
Scanning my feed like an addict doesn’t help me do my job — though once I swore it did. I can’t

Picture this: a well-dressed man enters the elevator of his high-rise condo, but instead of going down, he heads up to the roof. There, he hops inside his autonomous Uber aircraft and whizzes across town to the rooftop of his office building. The charge? $179, give-or-take surge pricing.This vision of urban, aerial transport is probably still many years in the future, but I’m optimistic we could start seeing flying car prototypes this year. After all, who could guess that we’d start

Public cloud market leader Amazon Web Services (AWS) offers a lot of services — 83 by my count. Some of them are more popular than others. Without question, the core EC2 computing service and S3 storage service are among the most popular. But then what?
AWS’ parent company, Amazon.com, doesn’t break out sales numbers for all of the AWS services. So instead AWS spectators have to lean on occasionally released, typically non-financial figures to get a feel for what’s b

Ready to charge into 2017 guns blazing? This is the perfect time to properly outfit you for the next 12 months. So for a limited time, we’re giving you 17 percent off nearly all of our already-discounted offerings at TNW Deals — just enter coupon code NEWYEAR17 at checkout. Meaning awesome sale prices become even awesomer… a fitting way to welcome the new year, don’t you think? VPN Unlimited: Lifetime Subscription Thanks to lifetime access to VPN Unlimited’s world

(Reuters) — A Shanghai court ordered two Chinese firms to pay Walt Disney Co and Pixar more than 1.35 million yuan ($194,440) compensation for copying parts of their hit movies “Cars” and “Cars 2”, the official Xinhua news agency reported on Saturday.
The ruling is the latest in a slew of intellectual property wins for large foreign firms, who have complained about widespread copyright infringement in China.
Disney and Pixar took the Chinese firms to court sayi

I’d wager most people who bought the HTC Vive love the unit but wish a new version would bring key improvements. A slimmer design and lighter cord, a better fit for the face and more ergonomic controllers without hard-to-reach grip buttons are all near the top of the early adopter wish list.
HTC relies on Valve’s lighthouse tracking technology to make the Vive and its controllers work. Earlier this year, Valve opened up that technology to a wide range of partners. While non

President-elect Donald Trump has a brilliant solution to our country's cybersecurity problems. 
No, it's not to condemn Russia for hacking the Democratic National Committee. It's turning back the clock to a simpler time, before these newfangled computers messed everything up. 
SEE ALSO: An A-list celeb has finally offered to perform at Trump’s inauguration
Speaking to reporters on Saturday while in Florida to celebrate New Year's Eve, the president-elect, per the press pool repor

Barcelona-based social advertising company Adsmurai has received €4 million ($4.2 million) in a second round of funding led by venture capital firm Axon Partners Group, with participation from Banc Sabadell, through its program BStartup10, and Enisa, a Spanish government-funded financing group.
Launched in 2014 by Marc Elena, Otto Wüst and Juan Antonio Robles, Adsmurai specializes in generating and optimizing advertising campaigns on social networks. A partner of Facebook, Instagram, Y

GUEST: When Slack burst onto the workplace, employees rejoiced. Finally, there was a way to chat without having to send a dreaded email or worse, get up and actually go talk with your coworkers face-to-face. Thanks to Slack and a handful of other messaging platforms, business teams could easily communicate using a single interface that would allow them to also send files, GIFs, and more.
The role of chatbots
Workplace messaging platforms like chat typically come with artificial assistants, or&nb

Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson won us over this year by dancing in a Pikachu costume and just generally being awesome. 
This Christmas, he outdid himself by buying a car for his dad, Canadian wrestler Rocky Johnson. But it's not the generosity alone that had people all choked up. It's the story Dwayne shared about his father. 
SEE ALSO: Behold, all your favorite viral trends in one viral videoBought my dad a Christmas gift and surprised him. He's had a hard life. This one felt good.My dad,

It doesn't matter if you're stuck at work, at home sick, or simply don't have the means to join the global party, there's no reason for you to miss the New Year's Eve celebration in New York's Time Square. 
SEE ALSO: Here's how to spend NYE if you want to ring in 2017 twice
Yes, there will be a few New Year's Eve shows broadcasting the festivities from New York City, but if you want the official livestream delivering real-time action, the official Time Square site has what you need.  

The new year may be upon us, but many of you are probably still playing with your holiday gifts, one of the most popular of which appears to be VR headsets. 
But if you take a look around social media, you'll notice a surprisingly common story popping up: People are getting so into virtual reality, they're destroying their real-world homes. 
SEE ALSO: Why wireless headsets for Oculus and Vive could be a step backward for VR
Whether it's playing shooter titles like Superhot or athletic