Technology news

I’ve just returned from BlackBerry’s Mobile World Congress event, where I got to spend some time with the new BlackBerry KeyOne, an Android phone with an obvious difference. The KeyOne is a return to classic BlackBerry form, hitching a full physical keyboard to the bottom of a solidly built, decently specced Android device with a layer of BlackBerry security and apps spread atop Google’s Nougat. I like this phone for daring to be meaningfully distinctive, but I fear its fate ha

GUEST: Every business has customers. Every customer needs care. That’s why CRM is so critical to enterprises, but between incomplete data and clunky workflows, sales and marketing operations at most companies are less-than-optimal.
At the same time, companies who aren’t Google or Facebook don’t have the billion dollar R&D budgets to build out AI teams to take away our human efficiencies. Even companies with the right technical talent don’t have the petabytes of data t

The strangest place writer Mark O’Connell has ever been to is the Alcor Life Extension Foundation — where dead bodies are preserved in tanks filled with nitrogen, in case they can be revived with future technology. “There was a floor with the stainless steel cylinders and all these bodies contained within them and corpses and severed heads,” he tells The Verge. “That imagery is something that I will take with me to a grave, whether that’s a refrigerated cylind

At Mobile World Congress in Barcelona today, Chinese electronics company TCL debuted the BlackBerry KeyOne. For those keeping track, this is the phone previously known as codename Mercury, as first revealed by VentureBeat reporter Evan Blass (evleaks) back in June. This is the first BlackBerry smartphone released by TCL under their brand licensing agreement signed in December 2016, and the fourth BlackBerry device running Android.
The BlackBerry KeyOne features an anodized aluminum frame, a text

The fifth annual Catalyst Conference by Girls in Tech will return to San Francisco on June 20 to 22, with more than 40 speakers focused on inspiring women in technology.
The speakers include Aaron Levie, CEO of Box; Jennifer Hyman, CEO of Rent the Runway; Kara Swisher, executive editor of Re/Code, and many others. While focused on women, the event is considered “accessible for all.” It takes place June 20 to June 22 in San Francisco.
The speakers will aim to educate and engage &

Fans have asked Nintendo to change the fundamental structure of its Zelda games for a long time now, but the publisher has finally listened.
I’ve spent about a dozen hours with The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, which comes to Switch and Wii U on March 3, and Nintendo has transformed its standard formula drastically this time around. To help illustrate how Zelda has changed, I’ve picked five subtle changes that surprised me. And I think each of these are indicative of

When Facebook launched Marketplace last fall, it had envisioned itself as a hybrid between eBay, Amazon, and Craigslist. Checking in on Marketplace months later, I’d like to argue that that assessment is inaccurate. Rather, Marketplace is more appropriately Craigslist meets Seamless. And it’s my new favorite place on the internet.
Have you checked your local offerings on Facebook Marketplace? Swipe through a bunch of used bookcases, blenders, and couches and you might soon come acros

GUEST: After the city of Flint, Michigan, temporarily switched water sources in 2014, residents began to develop unusual medical conditions. The city later learned the water was contaminated with high levels of lead and other toxins. Flint has a population of over 100,000. At first, state and city officials, including the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services, refuted the discovery and reassured residents the city water was safe for drinking. Official defenses fell only after citizens

Bonnie Ross, corporate vice president at Microsoft Studios and head of 343 Studios, confirmed this week at the DICE 2017 gaming summit that all future FPS Halo games will “always have split-screen going forward.”
The news comes after the removal of local cooperative play in 2015’s Halo 5: Guardians, which was the first Halo game in the series to lack the feature. That decision was met with considerable backlash from fans, especially given the Halo franchise’s long history

Valve today released a new tool called Steam Audio that represents the fruit of its purchase of Impulsonic in January. The tech promises sound which very realistically responds to a virtual environment and would serve as an improvement over the standard 3D audio.
In the demo video below you can hear the audio change as a player moves around a virtual room. In particular, some of the sound is partially blocked by a wall, altering the pitch and volume more than normal.It is a pretty sparse example

The first big phone announcement of Mobile World Congress goes to TCL and BlackBerry, with the two companies unveiling the BlackBerry KeyOne tonight here in Barcelona. The KeyOne is the final version of the device codenamed “Mercury” that we saw at CES last month, and it’s by far the most interesting and enticing BlackBerry phone since TCL started licensing the name.
That is admittedly a low bar. But let’s look at what TCL has achieved here. The KeyOne is an attractive ph

BlackBerry has officially launched the KEYone – its latest Android-powered device bearing the iconic Canadian smartphone manufacturer’s name. The device, which is produced by Chinese-manufacturer TCL and was formerly known as the Mercury, is distinctly BlackBerry. For starters, it incorporates the beloved physical hardware keyboard. While some may find it a bit anachronistic, it remains one of the most comfortable ways to type out a long email or document on a mobile phone. And as w

GUEST: Major changes are coming to the ag and food sector. The market demands it. 7.5 billion people need to eat, after all. We are seeing two core areas of innovation in the ag sector:
1. Technology is changing the way growers access and disseminate information. Consider innovations like remote sensing by established player Planet Labs or startup SaraniaSat that give growers virtual “eyes in the sky,” helping them track their crops’ growth and overall health. Genomics and plan

In 1995, astronomers pointed the Hubble Space Telescope toward a seemingly empty region of space to see what was there. What they found was astounding: almost 3,000 objects, too faint to see with the naked eye. In a short animated video from Vimeo user Bliink, we learn just what the astronomers discovered, and why this seemingly empty region of space is so important to understanding the universe.The video is a gorgeous, minimal affair that outlines the Hubble Deep Image Survey, and puts the scal

GameStop has more than 7,000 retail stores for selling games, but it has also diversified into publishing games under its GameTrust label.
Instead of competing head-on with game publishers, the company is going after games that might otherwise not get published or not get noticed. It is targeting titles from seasoned independent game developers whose games could sell for $15 to $40, rather than the $60 Triple-A games.
Mark Stanley, vice president of internal development and diversification at Ga

Amazon’s Patriot isn’t bad, except for from an SEO perspective (“oh, here I am all of a sudden being reminded of a woefully inaccurate historical drama starring the very gross Mel Gibson or reading reviews of the 2017 Jeep Patriot, ‘the best priced SUV in America.’”). Created by Steve Conrad (the writer behind The Secret Life of Walter Mitty and The Pursuit of Happyness), it’s a competently written dark comedy about an off-color intelligence officer with

Warren Buffett, one of the greatest investors in the history of recorded math, has a message for President Donald Trump: America is already great. 
The billionaire Berkshire Hathaway CEO, one of the most successful investors in the world and the second richest person in America after Bill Gates, waded into politics in an annual letter to shareholders on Saturday. 
"One word sums up our country’s achievements: miraculous," Buffett wrote. "From a standing start 240 years ago &ndash

Rare experimental devices show up on eBay every now and again, and this weekend, a prototype of an Apple iPod has surfaced with a staggering asking price: $99,995.00.
According to the listing, the device is a first-generation prototype sporting a red circuitboard with 5GB of storage. “I have never seen another iPod prototype 1st gen like this before,” the seller claims. “Not only is it in fantastic shape, given it's age and it being a prototype, but it has a red board inside. A

Last December, a self-driving Uber was caught on camera running a red light in San Francisco, shortly after the vehicles began testing on the roads. While Uber claimed at the time that a driver was at fault, a report from The New York Times claims that the car was in error.
The New York Times cites two company employees and internal company documents that reveal that the mapping programs guiding the vehicle in question failed to recognize six traffic lights, which allowed it to roll through a re

GUEST: In 2016, mobile app store downloads reached over 90 billion, while total time spent in apps worldwide increased to nearly 900 billion hours. From a business perspective, the app economy proved to be more lucrative than ever, paying publishers over $35 billion in revenue across the iOS App Store and Google Play.2017 is set to be another banner year for the app ecosystem. Here are some of the hottest trends from the most successful players in the space:
Retail apps skyrocketed when Black Fr

One of the coolest ideas in Resident Evil 7 is an “escape the room” section from the first expansion. Your protagonist has to solve a long string of puzzles to get out of a bedroom, while trying not to tip off the woman who locked you there in the first place. So a real-life escape room based on the Resident Evil franchise, which launched last year in Los Angeles, is a perfect fit. While it was originally launched as a promotional for Resident Evil 7, the experience recently reopened

There's finally an easy, fun way to delete your old tweets.
For $0.99, a new iOS app called Keep or Delete by German developer Tobias Block allows you to delete your old tweets in a Tinder-like UI. It's simple: The app loads your tweets, and you then swipe right to keep, or left to delete. It's like dating your own bad thoughts that you somehow once decided would be a halfway decent idea to make public.Image:tobias blockThe app's got several handy features. There's a deletion delay, where you ca

The White Helmets is a Netflix documentary nominated for an Academy Award for Best Documentary, Short Subject. According to the AP, the film’s cinematographer, Khaled Khateeb, will not be permitted to enter the United States to attend the ceremony after authorities found “derogatory information” during his background check.The AP reports that it reviewed internal documents in which the Department of Homeland Security decided to block the cinematographer from flying to Los Angel

Appearing on TV is nerve-wracking enough, but would you be willing to try breastfeeding while you were on the air? One brave mom gave it a try, and the result is fantastic.
Rachel Sklar, feminist media figure and founder of The Li.st, appeared a few weeks back as a guest on CBC news to talk about Barbie's recent makeover.  At first glance, you’d think she was just like any other talking head. Until the end..when out of nowhere, a baby hand reaches up to grab her shoulder.I went on TV

I’m scared of roller coasters. Not heights, not speed, not intricate examples of mechanical engineering: roller coasters. I am specifically, and dreadfully, terrified or riding roller coasters. This is the story of me riding a roller coaster.
Gulp.
Last week, my wife and I were received an invitation from Six Flags Discovery Kingdom in Vallejo, California, to stop by for a preview of its new attraction. One of the park’s existing coasters, Kong, was being converted into an immer

As the March for Science in Washington, D.C., grows, so does its criticism. 
This should be expected. Scientists are encouraged to look at even the most widely accepted statistic or finding and question it. So of course, as soon as the march, scheduled for April 22, was announced, people began to critically examine its message, mission and goals.
SEE ALSO: The D.C. march for science will be the most wonderfully nerdy demonstration ever
This critical examination has led to a better, more inc

Earlier this week, NASA announced that its scientists had discovered a seven-planet solar system orbiting a star named TRAPPIST-1. While “Earth-sized” doesn’t necessarily mean “able to support life,” it’s a good indicator that there are other systems out there that host multiple planets that may be habitable.
For science fiction authors, this is affirmation of a long-standing trope. For decades, authors have imagined solar systems with multiple Earth-like plan

A child's face on an adult's body is overall unnatural and unsettling. 
Leave it to Snapchat's face swap filter and other face-swapping apps to bring this genre of nightmare to real life and make you even more uncomfortable around children. 
SEE ALSO: Can you help solve this creepy internet mystery?
These creepy kid face swaps will either make you want to crawl into a hole and sleep forever or never shut your eyes again.  Read more...
1. Oh yikes. 2. Just a half oven, half ba

One of Kavipriya Muthuramalingam’s favorite memories of Srinivas Kuchibhotla, the Garmin engineer killed in a Kansas shooting this week, is of him cooking biryani, a South Asian dish.
Srinu, as Muthuramalingam calls him, was a recent master’s degree graduate in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, and so was she. Both found work after school at the aviation and defense company Rockwell Collins. The two of them, along with some other recent grads, formed a small community and one day Srinu offered to

There's something remarkable about the new Beats X earphones. It's not so much their sound quality — which is pretty good — nor is it the rubbery build, their wirelessness or the ease with which they rest in your ears.
No, it's the combination of all these things with two very specific, additional ingredients: a W1 chip and an iPhone. Well, make that three: the chip, the phone and an obsessive enough brain to care about how it all intermingles.
SEE ALSO: Apple might want to turn your

I’m taking over the trailer round-up for Jake this week, and in an effort to follow his tradition of reminiscing about a movie he saw this week, let me talk about one I saw a week or so ago: John Wick 2. John Wick 2 is a movie about a man with a dog, but as far as I know, it’s not similar to A Dog’s Purpose. Here’s what I didn’t like about John Wick 2: the fight scenes looked like the same footage on a loop, the PATH train was supposed to be the C train, making stop

Karoli Hindriks is old enough to remember when the last Soviet tanks and soldiers filed out of Estonia in 1991, not long after the country declared its independence from the USSR.
The joyful celebration that followed decades of occupation was quickly replaced by reality. Tucked into the northeastern corner of Europe, with a population of 1.3 million, no natural resources, and no major economic engine, residents looked around and wondered: Now what?
Hindriks, 33 represents a big part of

Marie Høeg poses with a man's suit and fake moustache.Image: Preus MuseumFrom 1895 to 1903, photographers Marie Høeg and Bolette Berg operated a commercial studio in the Norwegian town of Horten.Høeg was an active and outspoken suffragist, and used the studio as a meeting place for fellow activists and women interested in the suffrage movement. (Women won the right to vote in Norway in 1913.)More than three decades after Høeg’s death in 1949, a box of the partne

The 89th annual Academy Awards ceremony is Sunday, and Alexa and Google Assistant have opinions about who will win Best Picture, Best Actor, and Best Actress. The Oscars ceremony is Sunday at 5:30 p.m. Pacific. Red carpet action begins at 4 p.m. Pacific.
When you ask Google Assistant “Who will win Best Picture at the Oscars?” it says:
“I’m rooting for Arrival — a movie about translation is right up my alley. Plus I loved those aliens.”
Alexa&rsq

All babies deserve a healthy start in life, but surviving and thriving as a newborn in the developing world can be particularly hard.
Nearly 3 million infants die in their first week every year, according to the World Health Organization. Virtually all of those deaths — a staggering 99 percent — occur in developing countries, mostly in Africa and South Asia. 
SEE ALSO: 8 apps revolutionizing maternal health care in developing nations
But it doesn't have to be that way. Almost al

As the chills of February give way to the renewal of March, the mobile industry kicks off its year with the grand Mobile World Congress in Barcelona. In years past, this has been the launchpad for tons of smartphone innovation — so we keep hoping for more of the same — but in 2017 MWC is rather different.
The real change-makers in the mobile industry now are people like Netflix CEO Reed Hastings, who’ll be speaking in Barcelona on Monday, and new US FCC chief Ajit Pai, who&rsqu

Microsoft has announced a new initiative aimed at selling its cybersecurity smarts to public sector bodies across Latin America.
The Cybersecurity Engagement Center, located in Mexico, represents part of a growing push by Microsoft to position itself as a security-focused company — which is crucial in an age where enterprises and public sector organizations are increasingly shifting to the cloud.
Indeed, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella has made no secret of the fact that it’s striving to

ANALYSIS: (Reuters) – Snap appears set to make a splash next week with the biggest tech stock debut since Facebook, but history suggests investors shut out of the initial public offering would be better off waiting a bit to chase this unicorn on the open market.
Globally, shares of most of the 25 largest technology IPOs have languished in their first 12 months on the public market, with 16 of them notching a hefty decline from their debut day closing price, according to a Reuters analysis

Project management is a diverse field, with different companies espousing different philosophies. Thus, it’s vital that any project manager worth his or her salt (or wishes to be desirable in a buyer’s market) is certified in a variety of leading methodologies. That’s just what the Ultimate Project Management Certification Bundle (only $69 from TNW Deals) will do for you. With in-depth training for nine elite project management certification exams, you’ll be pr

Carrie Fisher might be best remembered for her role as Princess — and later General — Leia. But her final, wildly outspoken TV role is a reminder of all the reasons why we love her.
Two months after her death, Carrie Fisher will return to screens for her TV swan song in Channel 4's hit comedy show Catastrophe. 
SEE ALSO: How to stream Carrie Fisher's scene-stealing roles (besides Princess Leia)
Catastrophe first hit screens in January 2015, and since then it's gained a cult stat

(Reuters) – The U.S. Federal Communications Commission will block some Obama administration rules that subject broadband providers to stricter scrutiny than websites, a spokesman said on Friday, in a victory for internet providers such as AT&T, Comcast and Verizon.
The rules approved by the FCC in October in a 3-2 vote were aimed at protecting sensitive personal consumer data. Ajit Pai, the FCC chairman appointed by President Donald Trump, believes all companies in the “online sp

Apple real estate news continues to build up this week.
After revealing the name of its soon-to-be-opened new headquarters in Silicon Valley, the iPhone maker is growing its footprint and workforce in Seattle—not far from the homes of Amazon and Microsoft.
Apple confirmed to tech news site GeekWire that the company will be renting out more floors at Two Union Square, a 56-story skyscraper in downtown Seattle, where it already leases two floors.
The new hires are expected to be working

It was a photo finish for the ages. 
A 99-year-old runner, sneaked by his 92-year-old competitor, winning a 60-meter dash by 500ths of a second. A little lean forward was all World War II veteran Orville Rogers needed to clinch victory.
Just look at how close the two sprinters get at the end of the race earlier this week at the USATF Masters Indoor Track & Field Championships.Rogers told Runners World he was visualizing the win, a technique he uses to guide his competitive spirit.