Technology news

ZeniMax Media is seeking an injunction against Oculus VR to prevent the Facebook subsidiary from selling its virtual reality headsets and any other product that contains copyrighted ZeniMax code, according to Reuters. ZeniMax, the parent company of game developers id Software and Bethesda Softworks, filed the request in federal court yesterday. That’s the same Dallas court that awarded ZeniMax $500 million last month when it found Oculus guilty of copyright infringement and its executives

And lo, Twitter was grateful for the peach emoji. For this week, Justin Trudeau's butt enchanted the internet.
A photo of the Canadian prime minister wearing pants that fit him has flooded Twitter like maple syrup on a plate of pancakes. And everyone is talking about Trudeau's butt.
SEE ALSO: Justin Trudeau and Angela Merkel had a candlelit dinner and I am fine with that
Here's the butt.pic.twitter.com/O8YHFzV4Yn
— Calvin (@calvinstowell) February 22, 2017Now, should a politician's worth b

"CNN's reporting was not fake news," Fox News host Shep Smith said on air on Friday.
In lieu of a daily press conference, White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer held a closed-door gaggle with reporters, hand-selecting which media organizations had the privilege of attending. CNN, the New York Times, BuzzFeed, the Los Angeles Times and Politico were denied access, prompting a flurry of confusion and outrage. 
While reporters from the Associated Press and Time reportedly boycotted the meeti

Some members of the press, ourselves included, have had Nintendo's Switch console for a few days now in advance of its March 3 release. 
And some members of the press, ourselves not included, have reported issues with the left Joy-Con controller. Left shark would be (even more) ashamed if this was 2015.
SEE ALSO: All the ways I played with Nintendo's new Switch console today
The left Joy-Con controller, these other early Switch owners report, seems to occasionally register movement with a d

GUEST: Artificial intelligence is no longer the sole domain of tech companies like Google, Facebook, IBM, and Amazon. Recognizing the potential of exponential technologies like AI and bots, creative agencies like Ogilvy and consulting firms like McKinsey and Accenture now proudly feature AI departments.
The message to brands executives is clear: understand and leverage trends in automation and artificial intelligence, or perish.
According to McKinsey’s Michael Chiu, “As many as 45 pe

Uber CEO Travis Kalanick has a history of cringe-worthy comments. Easiest example — "Boob-er" in reference to a "women on demand" service — and here's some more. 
SEE ALSO: Why sexual harassment scandals like Uber's are bound to persist in tech
When he's not putting his foot in his mouth, Kalanick is known for particularly aggressive business tactics, which is one of the reasons why venture capitalists have given him more than $13 billion in funding to build out this ride-hailin

Brace for impact, folks. This is officially a full-on Twitter war. 
A pre-existing feud between former NBA star Shaquille O'Neill and Golden State Warriors center JaVale McGee flared up again late Thursday night with a series of hot tweets, the content of which included violent threats, nut emoji and not-so-savory photoshopped images.  
SEE ALSO: In pep talk fail, Jameis Winston tells elementary school girls they're 'supposed to be silent'
First, some context. 
Shaq — a

Eric Heisserer is having a hell of a year.   
The writer hit the big time with Arrival, which he produced and penned. Heisserer won both the Writer's Guild of America and Critics' Choice Awards for Best Adapted Screenplay, and may have a pretty good Oscar night too.    
SEE ALSO: One of the most underrated heroes in comics is back. Here's a first look
Arrival started with a tale called Story of Your Life, written by Ted Chiang, which packed an emotional punch. Heisserer

WWE Superstar John Cena played the Nintendo Switch at a pop-up event in California yesterday and he wants gamers to know one thing: the hype is real.
We were able to talk to Cena over the phone a day after he was spotted in the desert with a Nintendo Switch playing The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild and 1-2-Switch. Although the two games are pretty different experiences, he loved both.Starting my day with @NintendoAmerica and the new #NintendoSwitch. Who's ready for some #Zelda: Breath of t

Google today announced that on April 17 it will discontinue the Spaces app it launched less than a year ago. The app will become read-only on March 3.
“As we focus our efforts, we’ve decided to take what we learned with Spaces, and apply it to our existing products. Unfortunately, this means that we’ll be saying goodbye to supporting Spaces. We want to thank all of the Spaces users who tried out the app and shared their feedback. We apologize for any inconvenience this may caus

The big, recently released Star Wars mobile game is getting its first wave of new content.
Netmarble is updating Star Wars: Force Arena, its head-to-head strategy battler, on iOS and Android today. This patch is the publisher’s first major attempt to bring changes to the game, and that means a shift in how seasons work, new units, and an upgraded user interface. Force Arena plays a lot like Supercell’s 2016 mobile hit Clash Royale, but it features hero characters like Han Solo a

I recently rediscovered Robert Zemeckis’ film Who Framed Roger Rabbit after picking the film up on Blu-ray. It was a childhood favorite, and watching it all these years later, I found that it holds up incredibly well. Video essayist KaptainKristian seems to have found the same thing, because his latest video delves into what makes the movie great.Kristian points out three elements that make Who Framed Roger Rabbit particularly stand out from similar blended films. The first is that the fil

Google catches a lot of flak for having too many messaging apps, but there’s another messaging-style app that you almost surely forgot about. It is called Spaces and it’s shutting down on April 17th. Google’s traditional Spring cleaning is starting early — and with it maybe the company is showing it can be a little more focused on its messaging strategy.
Spaces was an attempt to help small groups of people organize conversations around specific topics. It wasn’t so

The Fig tree is bearing some big fruit.
Today is Pillars of Eternity II: Deadfire‘s last day of crowdfunding, and it has passed some big milestones. Fig announced that the PC, Mac, and Linux role-playing game is the most successful campaign ever for the crowdfunding site, right now achieving over $4.2 million with about five hours left to go. Fig also noted to GamesBeat that this is the first crowdfunded game to pass $4 million since 2015, with Shenmue 3 (6.3 million) and Bloodstained

VB LIVE: Even bare-minimum ASO strategies can give you an 87 percent lift. And skipping it means your app will sink, plain and simple. Learn how to step up your ASO game in our latest VB Live event, featuring VB Insight analysts and key takeaways from our latest in-depth ASO report.
Register here for free.
“ASO is huge, and if you don’t do this right, you’re wasting your time,” says Peggy Anne Salz, chief analyst at MobileGroove. “I don’t know what you’r

Microsoft today released a new Windows 10 preview for PCs with an updated Cortana persona and Edge improvements. This is the latest build of the company’s upcoming Windows 10 Creators Update, which is slated for release in “early 2017.”
Windows 10 is a service, meaning it was built in a very different way than its predecessors so it can be regularly updated with not just fixes but new features too. While Microsoft has released many such updates to date, the Creative Update will

Every Friday, a slew of new music videos hits the web. Watching them at your desk is not time theft because you deserve it; think of it as a nice reward for surviving another work week. But what if you don’t have time to watch every video — maybe you have a deadline, a hungry pet, or other grown-up concerns. In consideration of your schedule, Lizzie and Kaitlyn present a new series called One Video. Each week we’ll tell you “one video” you need to watch, why, and fo

Nintendo filed a lawsuit today claiming that a Tokyo-based go-karting service is ripping its ideas directly from Mario Kart. The service, called MariCar, is known for its go-kart tours around the city, during which riders don costumes of different Nintendo characters, like Mario, Luigi, and Yoshi. Nintendo alleges the company never obtained permission to use these costumes and that its entire business is based off Nintendo’s product. MariCar represents a play off Mario Kart, Nintendo says,

Uber rejected the allegations that it stole Google’s self-driving car technology Friday, calling the lawsuit from the search giant’s autonomous vehicle spinoff “baseless” and vowing to “vigorously” defend itself in court.Waymo filed the explosive lawsuit last night, claiming that Anthony Levandowski, a former Google engineer and current top executive at Uber, had stolen 14,000 confidential documents before leaving Google, which he then used to help build Uber&

Welcome to virtual reality, InExile.
The long-time independent studio announced The Mage’s Tale today. It’s an action-RPG for the Oculus Rift and its Touch controllers, and it should come out later this year. Its setting is in the world of The Bard’s Tale, and it’s InExile’s first foray into virtual reality software — which market researcher SuperData predict could hit a possible $14 billion in sales by 2020.
You play as a conjuror out to rescue

T-Mobile has announced that it will be the first US carrier to begin offering LTE-U support later this spring. The news comes after a recent FCC ruling certifying LTE-U base stations from Ericsson and Nokia earlier this week.LTE-U, or LTE-Unlicensed, is based on utilizing unused frequency in the 5 GHz band used by Wi-Fi routers for LTE service. The technology was originally proposed by Qualcomm as a component of the new LTE Advanced standard, with the idea of using the unlicensed 5GHz spectrum t

GUEST: Steph Hay, head of conversation design at Capital One, knows that her job — creating conversational interfaces for customers to access account information and complete financial tasks — is counterintuitive. Most people don’t like talking about money with other humans, let alone with a voice-enabled, anthropomorphized computer.
Last year, however, Capital One launched an Alexa skill designed to allow customers to do just that: talk to Amazon’s Alexa in ord

Hello! We’re still testing out our new studios so we thought we’d see how many people we can fit into the show. This week we’ve got Nilay, Paul, and Ashley in the podcast room, with Dieter and Chris Plante coming in over Skype. Everyone had so much to say so we gave you a few bonus minutes to listen to. Included are: Chris’ Nintendo Switch review, Dieter’s scoop about chips in Chromebooks, some MWC previews, and much, much more!04:26 - Nintendo Switch hands-on
23:24

Tesla CEO Elon Musk today sent a companywide email to his employees sharing the results of an investigation that was conducted on claims of unsafe working environments. The claims also advocated for unionization of Tesla’s factory. The text of the email was first obtained by TechCrunch and we have verified its authenticity.
Musk has been on the offensive against the allegations from the start, made by a Tesla employee going by the name of Jose Moran, who said that preventable injuries were

SoFi, an online marketplace for lenders and borrowers, announced today that it is currently raising an additional $500 million. The round is being led by private equity firm Silver Lake Partners.
The San Francisco-based fintech company initially began offering student loans when it was founded in 2011. It has since expanded to include services like personal loans, mortgages, and life insurance.
“We’ve seen tremendous growth at SoFi because we know what people expect from th

Welcome to another GamesBeat weekly roundup! This time, we reviewed the PlayStation 4 exclusive Horizon: Zero Dawn, Overwatch nabs another Game of the Year award, and the Miami Heat get into esports.
Enjoy, and have a great weekend!
Pieces of flair and opinion
The DeanBeat: Should you bring up Trump’s travel ban politics at a video game award event?
Nintendo Switch’s alleged battery problems are an exaggeration
In Halo, Bonnie Ross and 343 ‘inherited an amazing w

OPINION: Software’s biggest advantage is that innovations can be rapidly adopted. But that’s also its biggest downfall: It’s incredibly difficult for everyone to move on after that software is no longer deemed safe. SHA-1 is the latest example in a long list of technologies that needs to be abandoned ASAP.
Cryptographic hash functions are used to encrypt traffic and protect the contents of online communications, to locate data records in hash tables, to build caches for large d

Scientists have discovered a new species of extinct, marine worms that had snapping jaws and grew to an estimated 3 feet in length. The species, called Websteroprion armstrongi, lived some 400 million years ago — and is believed to be Earth’s oldest “Bobbit worm.” The species is described in a study published this week in the journal Scientific Reports.
Bobbit worms are giant marine monsters that dwell on ocean floors to this day. They can be as long as 10 feet, and their

Samsung has officially released its Secure Folder app for the Galaxy S7 today, following a leaked version of the app that showed up earlier this week (which also may have shown off the Galaxy S8).Secure Folder serves as an encrypted location for users to store personal or sensitive notes, pictures, contacts, apps, or documents. The app uses Samsung’s Knox security features to lock the files within, only making them accessible through a passcode or biometric security. The feature originally

New FCC Chairman Ajit Pai is gearing up for a full-scale assault on former chairman Tom Wheeler’s privacy rules. Passed in October, the privacy rules require internet service providers to get explicit permission before sharing users’ browsing history, location, and other sensitive data. Pai voted against the privacy rules at the time, and today, he announced a new plan that could see the rules frozen in as little as a week’s time.
Pai’s moves have to do with a petition fi

Lana Del Rey has a new album coming out sometime soon, so it’s fair to assume anything mysterious she does is just a way to remind you of that, but it’s also possible that one of her recent tweets was confirmation that she plans to put a spell on Donald Trump.Here’s the story: last night, LDR sent out a cryptic tweet that contained four dates and the phrase “the ingredients can b found online.” I initially assumed it was release dates for new singles, but some Lana

Frank Ocean, the famous, handsome, and very talented recluse, has popped his head out to say “hello this is my radio show!” I’m paraphrasing. This afternoon he launched a Beats 1 radio show on Apple Music called, according to a hashtag, Blonded Radio.
So far he’s played tracks from OutKast’s Stankonia and OutKast’s Speakerboxxx / The Love Below, so it’s a pretty good radio show if you’re into what OutKast was doing between 2000 and 2003. He’s

DeviantArt, the online creative community, has been acquired by Wix for $36 million, reports TechCrunch. DeviantArt will continue to operate as a standalone company, and will put investments into building out desktop and mobile apps.
In a blog post, DeviantArt CEO Angelo Sotir said joining Wix will allow its members to access the site builder’s tools to help boost artists’ online presence and get their work featured in more places. Those places can include, of course, Wix.com itself,

The game that lets you be your very own John Wick-style badass is about to get harder.
Superhot VR is getting some new modes and challenges in its Superhot VR Forever update that is coming out March 7. Superhot VR is a first-person shooter for Oculus Rift (requiring its Oculus Touch controllers) that lets players manipulate time. When you stand still, the game stands still. It lets players to plan out their actions with movie scene-like precision.
The update could bring lapsed players back to th

Barring some massive last-minute redesign, the Nintendo Switch will launch with one of the company’s most benign user interfaces. A queue of open slots (for your yet-to-be-built game collection) floats above six small icons: News, eShop, Album, Controllers, System Settings, and Power. There’s no flashy animation or interactive Mii village. It’s less minimal than it is skeletal. Fittingly, the console has two visual themes from which to choose: “Basic White” and &ldq

FEATURE: What is the most far-out, insane thing a smartphone could do?
In the final days of 2015, Google’s secretive Advanced Technology and Projects group searched for ways to prove that Project Ara — the never-released modular phone, the anti-iPhone — could do anything, and be anything, for anyone.
The group had already developed unheard-of ways of customizing Ara — from the processor to the screen to the camera — but after three years and three leadership shuffle

“Look, I don’t like tweeting,” Donald Trump told Fox & Friends two days before his presidential inauguration. He was lying.
If Trump disliked Twitter so much, he would have surrendered Twitter to the Secret Service at the door to the White House, where using unsecured Android phones is frowned upon. Instead, he continues to tweet from his personal phone, even during national security briefings. He has used Twitter to call people haters, dummies, and losers, and to effective

Video games are a great form of escapism. And the game industry celebrated them last night at the DICE Awards, the equivalent of the Oscars of gaming, and the DICE Summit 2017 conference this week in Las Vegas.
Amid the celebratory fun, I noticed something was missing. The show normally confronts issues head on, particularly when it affects the lives of game developers. But nobody mentioned Donald Trump and his controversial travel ban against visitors from seven Muslim countries. At the awards

Virtual reality is ready to grow.
Research firm SuperData released a new report predicting that VR hardware will earn $3.6 billion in 2017. That would be an increase of 142 percent over the previous year. It expects VR hardware to reach $17.8 billion by 2020.
Above: VR market size 2016-2020.Image Credit: SuperData
2016 was a big year for VR, with the Oculus Rift and HTC Vive launching for PC while Sony released the PlayStation VR for PlayStation 4 and the Google Daydream mobile VR device sa

LG introduced its 2017 Gram notebooks at CES this year. The updated line includes a touchscreen option and way better battery life. Today, we got pricing details. The LG Gram 13Z970 will cost $999.99 for non-touch, or $1,099 for touch. The LG Gram 14Z970 is priced at $1,499 when it includes an Intel Core i7 processor and $1,199 for the version with the Intel Core i5. The largest notebook in the line, the Gram 15Z970, goes up to $1,699 with the inclusion of an Intel Core i7 processor with 16GB of

Layer has secured additional funding to further develop its messaging platform that lets brands and developers create a Facebook Messenger-like experience inside their own apps. The company today revealed that it has raised a $15 million Series B investment round, led by Greycroft Partners. Microsoft Ventures, Salesforce Ventures, CME Group, and existing investors SV Angel, AME Cloud Ventures, Promus Ventures, CrunchFund, Fuel Capital, and others participated.
The latest infusion of capital will

(Reuters) — China’s securities regulator is considering offering a shortcut for some of the country’s largest technology companies to list their shares, allowing them to jump a long line of applicants and boost domestic bourses, according to six people with knowledge of the proposals.
The sources said companies being considered for the shortcut could include Alibaba Group’s Ant Financial affiliate, the world’s most valuable financial technology company; Zhong An Onl